Long Voyage

Long Voyage and a Chinese Lady. Glittering ocean, there is no difference between the vast blue sky and the sea. I’m in a bubble, there is no escape. I walk on a rusty deck know this voyage will never end. Time is reduced to a trickle. The ship is bound for Nagasaki but we will never get there. I feel a wave of dread, the difference between sunset and dawn is but a whisper. Magazines, books and old newspapers have been read and reread a thousand times, playing cards are filthy by overuse, I have fallen in love with the print of the green Chinese lady in the salon. When voices are still I sit and watch her and will her to smile, but she’s inscrutable. Seagulls, the sea has changed colour, grey and foamy, air is no longer pure. Nagasaki has come to our rescue and saved us from mortal weariness. The city will dock alongside us in the afternoon.