49) The Black Swan is sinking. Water is seeping through rotting boards, through the hull, once the bilge spilled over. I am listing. No longer a sprite bobbing, my boat is heavy, dragging, mixed with what it once had lovingly repulsed. Port and starboard have become confused, now they shift, change places, with the movement of my flood, inside the ship itself. I've two oceans dying to reunite. Pieces of the boat are coming off in my hands. My bed or nest, the coil of thick rope, has decayed to a coarse paste. The railing has fallen away. Objects slide unobstructed into the water. I hear cracking in the masts. The great wheel from which I played pilot is broken like some discarded metaphysic of departure and return. Glass portholes and all of the captain's cabin windows shatter, one by one, as I pass. Amongst the debris trailing the ship I can see the rudder, a riddle of worm holes. The sun taunts me with the perfect illumination of these things.
How much longer until I go swimming? My two busted gulls will sink with the ship. I cannot save them. I had taken to signing with them. We had something. Both fell into the hold where I can sometimes see them, shimmering, when the filthy water tosses them out of shadow. Who knows, once the water becomes high enough maybe they will effect an escape. But to what is my sorrow. The larger sea? There they will repeat their misery on a grander scale. I must steel myself, what there is of me, against such sadness. They are members of a cruel kind. They need a long death to give them time to understand the error of their ways. Now they feed on my excrement and offal heavings. Learn, my terrible twins! Send your cries to the ears of your wheeling brood. Teach!
I shall begin swimming while the sun is still sky high. I can see the shoreline from my perch most high. The boat is sinking so fast that little eddies and whirlpools form where water rushes in. A larger creature, then more of them, arrive to explore the submerged deck. Out of the hold float my gulls lost in thought. Time for us all to go. I've my backpack of pebbles, knife, brochures, whatever the hell else. I keep it with me for sentimental reasons. I do miss Doctor Creep, the way you miss a book burned into a pile of ashes. I plunge into the ocean. Matching right arm to left, stroke for stroke, I ply the waters well enough not to drown, though I do a little of that, just to break the monotony. I can no longer see land so I follow the routine course of sea birds. As happened once before, fish die all around me. From the very small to a bloated sunfish, they roll to the surface, dead supplicants to so pointless a god, me. How fruitful is the sea! One day I shall make a great fisherman. For the souls of men, I will have to wait. Unless death is my metier. Perhaps that is my part. Perhaps death is the prayer I answer. But can a fish or any other creature afflicted with a private tongue pray? And the mute? Can I pray? My thoughts are wet.
Later for answers. First to shore. The sun sets, etc. Twilight, a multitude of strokes, darkness. No birds but lights show me the way. I've done well. Brighter. Close enough to hear laughter. Couples frolic on the beach. Singing. Small fires and lamps throw teeming youth into hectic foreground. Even shadows are happy. I might join them except some of them, perhaps all, pray. Must make a wide pass. I swim toward a dark patch of beach. My feet touch the bottom. I stand. I struggle a little through abundant supplicants. I sit in sand. My breath returns. Turning back to the ocean, I leave it with no regrets. Such variety in that grave! I make my way to rocks wherein I may hide. In a little tumble of a grotto, no larger than a folded man, I find security. The air is warm. No sooner do I draw my knees to my chest when pitch pours over my eyes, it is Dr. Creep.