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?