The ropes

The ropes were no longer familiar. He struggeled to coil them, and mistook the whole comedy for the ropes resisting to remember their shape. They were wet and heavy and he kept going to rearrange them as they sat, complicating them, and the whole enterprise took longer than it ever had. Omar needed sleep. He had been watching skies and stars and sleeping spells of an hour at most. The aether was dissolving into a grainy electric field; his vision was polluted.

He craved citrus. The air had been dry until last night, when it poured down and the skies flashed and rolled in a storm that passed the time very quickly. His body was basic and though the opium was helping him absorb his rations he knew he was depleted. During the night, he became obsessed with minerals so badly he sipped a cup of saltwater and crunched the fine ribs of perch in his teeth. This morning his jaw hurt and he was thirsty.

The weather had changed, and the winds were blowing from the southeast. When Argento came and saw his state, something must have been understood. Martis did not appear this morning, but Argento gave Omar a cup of doped coffee. Omar slugged it down for the water. As it sat in his belly, he could feel it settle all of him like a stiff drink without the swimming haze of dry alcohol. His mind would not let him carry on. Omar asked for water and Argento showed him down into the makeshift galley. There were two large casks of water among the rations. Omar asked for fruit. Argento rifled through the lockable cabinet and emerged with a sack, pulled the string untied, took two pieces of dried mango out and gave one to Omar. "Get sleep. We aren't far," he told Omar and Omar lumbered up the stairs backwards and tapped across the deck to the forecastle. He was very fortunate.

The mango loosened with the water and he held it in his mouth to taste the perfect acidity. He was afraid he'd fall asleep with a bit in his mouth and choke, so he finished the rest but a piece the size of his thumbnail, which he put under the blanket under his head. When he woke, he would try to wash his leg, if not his body. The puncture wounds were nearly healed, and the bone was fuzing. He was very fortunate indeed.

As he fell asleep he remembered that his life was not always this and would not always be here. It gave him some solace, the frame of time and limits. As he could see, along with Argento, they were closing in on land. The wind was even more preferential, the texture of the air had changed. The time would soon come when he could take action to free himself.