47) On board the Black Swan, alone, is the finest time I've passed on this earth. Seemed dreary at first, but not this windy morn. Solitude is my surname that only here my genes may fully express. Well said, you incoherent wonder! I will explore my freshly minted world with an open mind. Firstly, I run the decks, back and forth, gripping ropes to swing, turning the great wooden wheel, and I found a way to run an assortment of colorful flags up and down a pole designed for the task of signaling and swearing hopes and fears to others. Such pleasures did my body have under the sun. Then I visit the upper reaches, the pilot's cabin or preserve. I am much higher up, well above the deck. I can see the world in its entirety, blue and gray depths, all heaving and roiling, fringed by mountains at a great remove. Magellan, Columbus, the mighty Cook, though a lowly yatchsman, I assume their blissful countenance. Yet I remain stony so as not to disturb the crew with unsettling romance. Great beasts swim just under us, to continue. The bow shudders, planks groan in play. How beautiful the sounds of my Black Swan so repulsed by the ocean, like a splinter in the inflamed finger of an angry child.
Sadly, I also see the hold, my former prison, where down in darkness rots dead men who, in another time, I could have called mates. It is only right that I toss them overboard, bury them at sea, as is the mariner's way. I descend the pilot's perch, one always must, from deck to hold. Down the ladder I see them heaped. Their graceless tangle is my doing. Whether repentance, remorse, or artlessness, my profane doings must be undone. I pick each up, throw them over my shoulders. They are so heavy when empty of life, they are filled with bad air and omens and busted bones, their stiff limbs curse and curse. To be dead, rusted shut, all screws stripped, shoes a'bursting with swelled feet, rings cut into fat fingers, oh, the dessicated eyes that once wept at cruelty and the sweet things of life, to be dead is stupid. All show. The dead need sensitive handlers or they are lost twice. These two are fortunate they have me. I see their loss. I will remember them.
They do not splash when they hit the water. Waves merely crest over them, and they are gone. I say the words 'goodbye' and 'goodbye' for each. Short, to the point. My day goes on.

46) He said, 'Be still'. The good Doctor left me shivering in the dark. I could not make out his features. And when he had touched me he did not die. He must be immune to my murderous touch. No surprise. He chuckled, more to himself, when I showed him the handbill with my picture rudely drawn, the handbill the crew had tossed upon my head as curses rained, 'criminal!' etc. His parting gesture was to point out another small boat tethered to the stern. It was floating just fine. Had I chosen the wrong one? Was I to try to escape again? Why the charade?
The awful cries of the crew, when they found their fellows dead in the hold, filled my brain. To escape is to escape. I can hardly be faulted for doing what anyone in my position would do. I am, instead, rather proud that death came to only two souls. I am almost a hero. It could have been much worse, so on. But still, there is a tone or timbre to mourning that sets it apart from the usual complaints of the day. Thus do I believe.
I watch the crew gather around the empty, black center of their brotherhood, all of them by the rail whence the skiff did sink. Voices calm, almost reduce to whispers. They stand quietly. The ship turns away from the shore. Further out we go until the lights from shore are nearly extinguinshed on the horizon. Then I hear the ship engine stop. We slow. A gentle rocking resumes. There is no effort to reset the anchor. Down a ladder descends the pilot, I have to believe it's him. The crew is silent as the pilot joins them. As a group they melt into the night. I stay hidden, as the Doctor instructed. I must have remained that way for minutes, until I guess the danger to me has passed, though really not knowing what else to do. I get up, finally, to escape, I suppose. I crawl toward the stern. The little boat is no longer tethered. In a turn odd to me, the crew has assembled therein. Rowing. Dr. Creep is among them. I am left alone on the ship now drifting aimlessly off shore. I would have called out, but I am not able to speak. What good would it have done? Why come back to me? Perhaps Dr. Creep, always good for a joke, sent them out looking for me? But then why did the pilot also leave? No, Dr. Creep is saving them or they've had enough, they no longer want to imprison me. Barring a hidden fold to a plan, they've been made to abandoned ship. What to think.... Well, I have the larger vessel. Room to move around, stretch my legs. I am a captain of the...the...Black Swan. My cargo is death.

45) When I had lowered the lifeboat into the water I was rudely surprised to find it was not worthy. It was without a floating chance. The sea began to pour in from a dozen rotted breaches. I grabbed ahold of the rope and, as the skiff sank, I was obliged to cling and thence climb back up the hull of the ship. Some escape. But, with the skiff disappeared into the modest off-shore abyss, other moves came to me slogging though honey. I am not a good climber. I am a poor climber. Life, however elaborated, will find a way. Inside me there is a spark, an urge, a flame(?) that is undeniable. I know Carlos had it, and his friend, the Knights of the Short Straw, they had it. I saw it in their failing eyes. Mine was stronger. I am no more deserving, merely stronger in so small a way that, nevertheless, makes all the difference. Some, of an otherworldly persuasion, hold precious smooth, rounded stones, even though, and someone should tell them, a machine can tumble the most jagged rock to perfection. Further, remote worlds, planets, all the suns above, they are all round, to the aided eye. The moon, I'll start there, is clearly. So, perhaps the rough stone is the rarer? The world likes edges, me thinks. Too great an idea here. Then, now, while hanging, myself listing the ship a bit, I wondered, would I ever find a life urge stronger than mine? I am not even trying! Of course, the stars were of no help. Jumping fish retreated. No assistance at all came to me. Well, the wind pushed me this way and that. I was banged onto new hand holds. Still... Tears nearly fell.
I was desperate. My cold hands, those of a freshly minted killer, seemed to make the rope weak. I swear, it began unraveling at my touch. But I made it. Back on board, I had to find a place to hide. I tucked my soul into the darkest shadow and waited. Another man came down, stomping in rubber boots, down from Dr. Creep's room of confidence. I espied him peering into the hold. He shouted out the alarm. Others came running. One descended into the hold. More shouting. Another noticed the dangling ropes over the side. They put together my escape as it should have been. Words, words, more words. Lights were trained upon the deep. Pitiful lights, designed to only provoke stupid fish to the surface, for an easy kill. Shouts. 'Nada'. And 'nada', again. The ship began to heave. The searching crew was shunted to one side, so powerful was the thrust. Shore bound we were. I wish I were in possession of a fuller nautical language so as to render the practiced activity more precise: boatswain whistles, knots, marking twain, hoisting, so on. Dull, dull. Keep a clear head. I am the filthy, fugitive thing in deepest shadow. All I need to know.
Another shadow approaches near to me. He stands close enough to touch. His gloved hand touches my brow. He brushes away my wet, matted, hair. He smells of heavy oil, ash. Too long in the fire. 'Still, still, your panic'd heart', he says. 'North'.
I am the needle in every haystack. I am the rare coin in a shopkeepers till. The last living bird of a kind. Or puzzle piece. I am the thing that finishes a mystery, the solitary trinket hinting strongly of Atlantis. The 'it' of childhood games. I am alone. Dr. Creep, leave me alone.

44) I lay the men to rest, side by side, in the Date Garden. I put one stilled hand in the hand of the other. Carlos and his small friend. I name them Knights of the Short Straw. It is the least I can do after having done the most I can do, to them. I notice the night is temperate, the air fresh, as I climb the rope ladder to the deck. I am free. Of the pit. Here and now, I do not want any other man to die. I must avoid the balance of the crew, six, while making my escape. They must avoid me, I mean. I am pleasantly surprised to see lights on a nearby shore. A heavy chain is plunged into the water. We are at anchor! Perhaps we were never far from the coast. Perhaps we were never under way. It was all a trick of my guilty conscience, if I had one. Maybe next I'll wake up and my life hitherto will have been a miserable dream, but dreamt by a wonderful family man, or a gentleman about town, a dapper dresser, full of wit and insight, a man of bursting wallet, generous, too, often inviting complete strangers to dine and drink in fine clubs or bistros, or even in my own home, which is large, plenty of room for games of chance and chess, for singing and grand conversation, and a reading library of hoary volumes full of mystery and hate, violence, regicide and gloom, there would be numerous bathrooms for even the most discriminating evacuators, down every painting-lined wall. I'll stir from the four poster with only a dissipating vapor of stomach sickness to bridge the somatic divide. Nope. No dream.
Where is my backpack? I've found a suitable lifeboat but I cannot leave without my backpack. I don't go far. I almost trip over it after finding the lifeboat. The contents are largely useless so I needn't check for theft. Not much I could do if I found the brochures missing. Kill them all? I think not, not for brochures. Of them, they are pretty, they have neat, even folds, between each is boldly written detail about, and fine pictures of, waterfalls, ducks, horses, mountains and rodeos. One features 'Indians of the West'. An interesting group. What are they doing? What do they do? How curious these riders on horseback. With weapons. The woman, too, is armed.
I can ill afford to linger over them. I get into the little boat. There is a skill to the lowering I do not have. Progress is slow. Halfway down I worry more and more about the noise I am making. I nervously look hither and yon, waiting for the detection that will send more men to their deaths, when what should I see through the windows of the ship's control room: Dr. Creep in silhouette. The spider's body itself! He is talking to the crew, now he's gesturing a sharp meaning. Dr. Creep is here. He will think I am a murderer again and again. Too many times. I must get away, sever the apron strings. I cannot take seeing disappointment in his eyes, eyes made of smoke and the dust of ages. I have not looked into them, but I know he has witnessed monuments weather away, the miraculous becomes mundane in his hands, and, he made me, in his image. That is how I know him.
Time to row to shore and... North.
Goodbye, Doctor Creep.

43) I cannot tarry for instructions from Dr. Creep. Deciding a thing or two on my own has brought me to this awful place, this I know. No luxury of detachment, still less a miraculous intervention is for me tonight. I've wanted a shred of independence, now it is given of whole cloth, so to say. I'll try to use it.
The little dead man stuffs away neatly, hidden by beams, the hull, or what not. Once I've done him this way, like a dung beetle does, I realize the rope is useless to me. There is no knotted hook that I might throw onto the deck so as to hoist myself up. New plan. I have to unstuff the little fellow and lay him at the trough drop, visible to those who will follow to check on his behalf. Once this is done, I must hide nearby in the shadows, which, frankly, is all there is here. I have the element of surprise going for me. But then I think, won't the one who next arrives, another short straw, won't he call out for his gang, his brethern, to come help him, especially if I am not to be seen? So, I've another plan. (Independence clouds the mind with plans.) I shall lay under the dead soul, and in that way create the illusion that I, as massive and as redoubtable as I am, could possibly have been knocked out or crippled or made dead by his fall. Funny story I'll tell myself again later! I cannot resist a laugh at the thought that so miserable a cooling thing I now am beneath could be made to seem my fate. I have been crushed by stones, buildings have fallen upon my head, I have been shot, frozen, fed toxins, etc...and now this little man ends me? I think not. But the one who now appears at the opening of the hold, he is convinced I'm down for good. He calls out, 'Carlos!' I quicky revisit my plan. I subtly move 'Carlos' arm, and I moan in a foreign manner, with accents and oomlauts. I feign life in him. The man above does not call his gang. Instead, he listens to his heart and drops a rope ladder down. He descends. He is unsteady. And when he draws near I can smell foul drink. He bends to his mate. I make my move. I merely grab his arm, yet he expires, as does the sparrow, even when held by the most loving hand. It is as though my touch alone...wait...I'm wondering...wait...wait.... He crumpled at my touch, this soul. Did I do this? Dr. Creep?

42) Night falls on my sixth day of confinement. No sign of Dr. Creep. Hence, I must act by myself. Dependency on him has its fine rewards, to be sure, but my intimation of his Greater Design, that he wants me to join in, even while I am knee deep in filth of the hold, compels me to take a commanding role in my own fate. It follows that I've learned a little something of my multiple captor's routine, or of their variance of the same. In the beginning of my presence on board they enjoyed gathering for hearty torment at the trough drop. There were seven of them then. I assume one stayed piloting the ship, so I must believe there are at least eight men on board. Now, it seems my novelty has worn off for but a single soul shows up at my feeding, and he appears to have drawn the short straw. My portions of sour fish mash have been reduced so that this diminutive man might do the work of lowering and hoisting alone. Will he be alone tonight? On this lovely temperate evening, perfect for escape, I have such good fortune that, yes, only this simple man appears. To put him at ease I obligingly cower. He lowers the trough. He shouts the routine insults and waits for me to eat and wretch. Which I do, but with a difference. I grunt a bit more to let him know I have finished. He lowers the rope. And as I tie the knot to the handle of the trough I give the rope he holds a great pull. How far do the mighty fall! He hits the ground with god's speed. Yet he still has life enough to beg, or maybe he is talking to his mother or asking why I did the great pull or he is fretting in general. I can't tell. I don't understand the tongue. How many times do I have to endure moments like this, when foreign words translated could clarify, and better, make beautiful a last breath? I have been witness to a veritable Bartlett's of final words, but I don't understand any of them. Should I ever be asked what so and so said before an end I shall have to honestly decline to respond. To the last man.
So. Here on the floor, beneath me, is a man. I appear to him in the light bouncing off the murk of the Vomitorium. He is afraid. I am not fearsome, but he is very afraid. I lay hands upon him to end his suffering. He flashes out like an ant under glass. He is a small, dark man, with a complexion burnt by the sun. Very rugged to the untrained eye. To me he is an old parchment grooved by the steel pen of dead work. What a malign moon, author of life's heartless tides, must have rolled him here! Can it be imagined the folds within folds of the robes of christ that brought his life to mercy at my feet? You can tell I plainly like him. He is weak, frail, his heart resides just a few inches beneath his breast. Like me.
Suddenly, I remember a sunny day from my youth, (a moment, anyway), when neighborhood kinder pulled the legs from a harmless spider. One by one. The legs each twitched on and on when laid atop the heated pavement. Laughter ensued, as here on this ship. The body of the spider was left sans power of locomotion. Still it tried to walk on its shreds, its stumps, (joints?), pivoting on its tender thorax. Oh grim destiny! Eight men on board. One has just died. Seven legs left to pull. Oh! Curse my endless night, curse this gross symmetry, that an end repeats a beginning! Repetition with no due process. So what. Humanity aside, I must get away. N'est pas?

41) I am under the distressed opinion that there is nothing natural in this world. I could begin with my rearranged, scarrified self, but I won't. Instead, I am a Jonah or Ahab, not in the belly of a whale, but the filthy hold of a ship. Jonah and Ahab are strange fantasies. I am no fantasy, I am real. Also artificial. I am both, as were the slaves imported from hither and yon for work and cruel, life-long entertainments. I think I may be a real slave at this point in time. I am brought a fermented crush of fish in a big bowl or such. My captors lower an offal trough of the same down to my prison from the deck, my water, too. I can hear them laugh while performing this task. Especially when I am obliged to reattach the trough from any given yesterfeed. I am a good slave. I eat and drink everything they bring. I am very real when retching my soul onto the smeared floor, the hull, whatever. I've chosen a place for the latter activity, in a corner well off the hatch thrown open at Torment Time (as I now call the occasion of the trough decent). As for evacuation, the final ridding of my perturbed system, I've chosen a shady spot bounded by supports and iron girding. It is as far away from where I drag the trough to eat as possible. Down here I experience little purposeful movement apart from my ramble from the retching spot, to trough, to shitting place. And more: I've been here for three days and so have begun naming stations along the route. First there is the Vomitorium, very Roman, very imperial, then comes the trough drop I call the Salon, from there I walk along the Esplanade to the Date Garden, a much welcomed few feet of circulating fresh air created by minor imperfections in the ship's construction, soon I come upon the Frontier, a porous boundary, just before the Savoie, my crapping place, becomes overwhelmingly foul enough to chase naming away.
Yes, I have thought of combining the Vomitorium with the Savoie but I've learned I cannot make the distance before doing one or the other thing. You understand, I must preserve the Date Garden.

The knocking of my boots upon the floor is a kind of music. I've taken to music. The spirits onboard join in. They are many.

After three days I know Dr. Creep is not here. He may have lost me. In this other world, I'm being taken on a brigantine by pirates or simple kidnappers. They rain down on me the sound 'criminal, criminal'. In a moment of weakness they tossed a placard or handbill on which I am claimed to appear among the crudely drawn lines. Ugly visage. Someone has seen me and been alive enough to provide a sketch. I am wanted here and there. I've done nothing but have only been a mute dreaming of and marching North. I will not take much more from my captors, though such a diffuse sentiment is a long way from a plan. I must plan getting away.

40) Dr. Creep? Are you here...? Where am I? I never would have arrived unannounced in one of those dirty little beach houses. I would not have kicked in a door. No no no. I'm not that way! I take death very seriously. Not my own. The death of others. You know I have no instruction. 'North' is not enough. It could be enough if there were not so much life between me and the end. Where is the end? I do not think 'North' is an end. It is only a direction, right? Dr. Creep, why am I so stupid? Please, what are you going to do? It is dark in here. But I thank you for the weak light, as far as it goes.
See me. Though my back pack, all of my possessions have been taken, I am not afraid. I am just a little troubled.
Thank you for the new bandages. I feel well enough to look around a bit. Am I in the hold of a ship? It smells like humanity down here. Real lovely. But also spices. Maybe fruit. Doctor, I am not angry. Can you appear, please? I did not mean to threaten you. I am not able to mean anything. Further, I have not talked with a single soul. I can only get close. Then my throat closes. I.... O.K., too much about me.
Are you taking me back to the ice? I do feel movement. Gentle rocking. I am in a cargo hold. I am going somewhere.

Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor....I will shut up now.... North? I hear gulls. North.

39) I rarely observe people alone. Though they may be alone in their thoughts and behaviors, people move together. I would like to join them in their work and play. Certainly my ugly dreams always include another, or more. But, sadly for me, I cannot fall in. The reasons for such a condition are out of focus. I only know Dr. Creep has made fraternizing out of bounds. He says it is for my own protection. For just as one knows the heavier bottle will smash the lighter, that the crow will menace the sparrow, and that an unwashed hand makes for a poor soup, I cannot do well amingling. So has the Doctor warned me, though in less colorful terms. A cordon sanitaire surrounds me. Fate. I need only recall, most recently, how the child who saw me leave the church unsteady with a belly full of wine, roiled inwardly. How he/she/it trembled! How they struggled for help words, how they made urgent gestures at the sky for salvation. And how my isolation became the tiny child's as I passed: a listing heap of pleas. How very alone is this babe with prayers that will never be answered! I cannot but make young and old slump to the ground. And animals. Things crumble. Dr. Creep must answer me when I ask the wherefore and the why of this. He calls it fate. I may not want it. I do not. I must force Dr. Creep out into the open. He must be made to join me in a conversation about the terrible path my life has taken. He must be made to help. I need a correction of some kind. I am not well.

As I run, a glance behind reveals only a few, maybe a dozen, on my trail. The little church has many friends, it seems. Still, there are more hills here than pursuers. I need to find a place to hide. I am surprisingly fast in the open, even while soaking wet, which I remain from the rain falling again.
I have an idea. It occurs to me when I first smell the smoke of a small house fire. Over a rise I see below an entire beach front of homes of cold souls. House fires pour smoke over the scrub beach. And I think I'm alone! Dr. Creep, you had better get here quick. I am going into the neighborhood. I need to dry, my gut is aflame. Medicine, medicine. I am descending to be among the poor folk. They are defenseless, Dr. Creep, aren't they? In each house is a story that will never be told, or if it does, will never get out to the world. Small people suffering small hiccups of life before small fires. I will choose one, and they may well be done for. Woe unto that private hearth. We shall see.

Here I come.

38) Rain. Rain. Walking in clothes heavier than one's self is a discipline known to penitents, deep-sea fishermen, and those with no home. There may be other groups, but they don't occur to me under this deluge. I've not gone on about my boots. My glasses have been a silent prescription. I have not worn them a single hour. They were made for the desert. Sure. Of my boots, this is the one happy note of my trudgery. Within them my feet are numb to the cold, impervious to the rough shocks of this awful country. Whether fording muddy pools, beshited streams, or decorating the earth with tracks upon tracks, they've proven a plus. They have helped with my balance, very much needed because of my ruined toes, the Doctor's caring focus it seems so long ago. They will have to be removed. Frostbite has killed them, finally. I think I now know the why of the pocket knife. I am used to discarding anatomical bits. My body-wide suturings tell me I'm discriminating. O.K. I must find a place to chop.
Rio Gallegos. So a weathered sign reads. I find a little church with separate living quarters. They are the first structures I come upon or see, when the rain relents. Such nice little shacks. Far better than any of my recent dwellings. Except for the cave, who would not prefer a cave, cast by the earth itself, to a hovel, however well protected by a local god?
I kick in the front doors of the church and stand there before the divine, as a fierce, muddy mess. The local god is deaf and blind to foreigners. Good news. I take comfort. I am not seen by the deity. I think gods provide what amounts to a black cloak for those who do not know them. And they speak in only one way, one tongue. Neither do spirits know how to tell their worshippers that a crude, alien thing passed through them. I am a red ribbon drifting in swells on the surface of a sea. An empty bag snagged in brush. Incongruous, but pure background rubbish. This Sunday the sermon will be about how their front doors came to be kicked in, not with any accuracy about who might have done it. Locals did it, kids, in search of the chalice wine, it'll be said. The parishioners can take it. They crave signs. Contrarian events make them more convicted believers.
I have intruded to find a dry place to review Dr. Creep's divine brochures, and to remove a couple of my offending toes. What the hell, I'll find the chalice wine. It does sound good, I must admit. I will drink it only for the credibility of the blame to follow upon the kids. And I will drink to dull the pain to come. Where, oh, where. I bust open a few low cabinets. Then high cabinets. I cannot find the wine anywhere. I do not think to look in the refrigerator until the hollow statuary itself has been smashed. I've made quite a mess. Those damn kids.
The wine tastes like worthless grape juice. It is hard to have the patience for the alcohol. There has to be something to transubstantiation to endure this cold, sugary swill. But, then...Magic! I begin to feel warmly stupid. Time for my surgery. No sooner have I removed my shoes then... Who is there? Gasps and cries echo in the church. People have come. Maybe from the other building. They stammer about damage. I peek over a pew to watch them rush about. Seems they've noticed the clear muddy prints I've left on the floor. They follow them in to the first room I rudely searched. More sighs of alarm. 'Dios mio'. I just may learn this language before they're rid of me.
I've heard enough. I get the hell out of there. I am out and running. I am leaving. It would have been a simple memory had not a child seen me.

37) Morning....North. My imperative. My command. I think of nothing other. Dr. Creep has given me the key to my coherence, my order. It must be that there exists in the North some great destiny, a resolution to my plagued condition. I can hardly wait for the moment when the plants and animals sing or sigh to me, when the wind and rain yield to clear paths, and when the sky full of stars bends down close enough to kiss, if that is what can happen. I need peace. It will be mine. In good time. The ever precise Doctor intends to lift a veil. But his ways are obscure, elliptical. Hence, I need to look more closely over the contents of my backpack. Specifically, I recall pamphlets to museums and geographical destinations in the North. Perhaps among them is a description of my rest.

The rain is pouring. I abandon the stodgy vehicle. Float it away, please. The earth is awash. My coat is permeable. Soon I am ankle-deep in mud, and wet. Constricted. Discomfort narrows the mind. I cannot see more than ten feet ahead. The noise of the downpour is deafening. I follow the road. No vehicles pass. Only the most vigorous wild things could enjoy this. I am bent by the force of the rain. My gut-shot bandages are soaked. Could It be cleansing? This one hopes.
The wind rids me of the stench of my being. The sun peels away layers of conflict. Rain is a general wash. The elements work me as they would a pebble. The rough rock is eroded to a smooth paving stone.
North.