Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Pursuit of Happiness on The Sea of Discontent


 












Josephina was a sailor.

She was a lone sailor on a ship full of old men who'd been sailing their whole lives.

The men spit into the dark angry ocean because they could. 

They killed sharks because they knew how.

And they looked at Josephina like she was shark bait. Their shark bait.

She was scared at first, but she knew the ocean would one day run through her veins like it did for the others.

"I don't go by Josephina on this ship, do you hear me? It's Jo. Do you understand!" she grunted. Her long brown hair was piled high on top of her head, curls spilling loose around her pale, delicate face. Her eyes were wide and gray as she spoke, her voice high and flimsy.

The sailors laughed. Their shark bait had some fight in her. They shook their heads and walked away.

The days were long and arduous and sometimes Jo missed her life on land very much. She heard the voices of her family in her head, begging her not to leave, asking her with desperation not to go. But she had made the decision to live on the sea, where the waves were both beautiful and heartbreaking, where the ship rocked at night in such a way that she felt both sick and in the arms of her mother at the same time. Some nights she tossed and turned violently with the ocean, some nights she slept as if she were a child in a cradle.

"Jo, you're doing it all wrong," the sailors would taunt her. They were ruthless. One particularly rough sailor with a weathered face and a deep voice pushed her close to the rail and threatened her, holding her inches from the wrath of the waves. "You don't belong here, little girl!" He held her down with his textured hands, his palms scarred with thick grooved cuts from battle. She kicked and fought her way back over the edge, breathing rapidly and wildly. "The ocean holds no refuge for you!" he screamed at her as she backed away from him, the fury and sadness in his voice striking her heart. "Don't you see? You will only suffer!" he cried, as she held back a wail of defeat.

Jo ran to her quarters and slammed the door shut. She threw herself onto her worn bed and began to sob. She hadn't cried once since arriving, but the tears now poured from her easily, freely. Perhaps she had been wrong to come. She was alone and tired and broken. It seemed she had been here forever... Yet, how little respect she'd earned from the others. She never should have journeyed so far from home, the risks had been too great. This admission of failure made her cry even harder, and Jo felt the warm streams of water running down her cheeks, hitting her lips like rain, her tongue puckering at the taste.

Her tears were salty like the ocean she desperately wanted to be a part of.

...And then Jo stopped crying.

Not right away, no, her muffled cries were slow to cease, but she eventually found herself in silence. Her shoulders had stopped heaving. Her heart had resumed a normal beat. But her mind....her mind was quickening. The ring of salt from her tears was still on her lips.

Josephina sat up in realization. The ocean was within her.

She was already a part of the mysterious water...the ocean had always been a part of her, had been a part of her long before this day.

The ocean whispered deep within her soul and she'd must learn to listen to the current.

She wiped her eyes and ran back to the deck, determined, her hair wild in the wind.

"I will not concede!" Josephina cried, as she infringed upon the men. The sailors were all in a circle, laughing and joking, having long forgotten about the little girl who ran away.

She broke through the center and cried out again, louder this time, "I will not concede!" The men quieted and looked at her with shocked, curious eyes. Josephina continued. "I have come this far and I will not leave. I will learn your secrets." The sailors were silenced by her spell.

She looked out to the sea, her voice rich with conviction. "I will be unruly, I will scream and cry, and I will succumb to the power of the tide with grace and strength. I will yield to its magnificence and I will learn from the battle. I know why I am here and I will not leave," she growled. Josephina grew more glorious by the second. Her passion seared the ears and eyes of all who beheld her. "The time will come when I will sail these waters not only as your equal, but one day as your leader, and you will all wonder how I learned to wrestle Poseidon... I will listen and I will understand the high sea's wails and whispers...because it is within me: it is who I am...."

The men didn't know what to say. Some looked on in respect, a handful looked on in fear...for they all knew what she said was true. 

She believed it and it would be so.

Josephina crossed the circle and the ring of sailors parted for her as she walked back to her corner of the ship. She placed her hands on the ropes, running her calloused fingers across the dirty ridges.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. For the first time since she'd set foot on the ship, she was certain she belonged here.

She would fight to remain. And she would win.

Waves rocked the vessel, and when she stirred, she saw before her the sailor who'd threatened her. He stared her down for a moment with his piercing eyes. Josephina held his rough gaze.

"...Good girl," he nodded. "Honor your words, Jo. And do what you say."

She took him in and nodded back.

The sailor gave her one last look and turned the other way, smiling when he was certain she would not see.

Josephina sat serenely for a moment, letting the wind embrace her.

And then she got to her feet.

There was work to be done.

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