Short Story: The End of the Trip

On the night that the ship stopped moving and dropped its anchor into the dark waters and the summer air froze did we first step on Bulgarian ground. For the first time after a millennium of troubles the captain came out on board and breathed deeply in the familiar air of what he called home.

By that time none of us believed he was still alive in there. He had been locked in his small depressing cabin since the beginning of our trip, but some said he’d been in for even longer. I myself had never seen him until then. My friend Roger and I constantly made stories about the captain when we were off working hours. We’d go near his cabin door, snoop lower and peek into the locker. We would listen for a whole minute the steady breathing of each other trying to reach the thoughts of that mysterious persona who, we thoroughly believed, did not even exist. We would do that every night, but we never heard anything but the creaking planks of the ceiling giving way to cries of misery under the weight of the sailors above on deck. And every night we saw the same picture within the locker. The same made bed, the same small table, and the same blue ship hanging in a frame on the wall. And it all seemed very normal at the time because that was what could be seen in every cabin on our ship, and nothing stood out, and nothing was out of the ordinary. And it never reached our minds that if we could see inside in the darkness of the night, every night, then there was light inside and someone had to have turned it on.  

The fascination of the mystery had overtaken our young minds and the boredom of the endless sea had switched on our imagination. Every night after we’d examined the well-known wooden door for a millionth time we would go out in the open air, far away from those who slept and those who didn’t, and we would make up stories about the captain whose name we didn’t even know.

But the trip was long and we hadn’t read enough to be able to come up with that many stories. Then we started working the crew. We’d talk with every sailor and ask him what he knew about the captain. And each knew something, and each knew something different. One would say that the captain’s name was Black, another said Stroul or Benson or Thompson or Florentine, and it took us a while to realize how well we knew one another on that little ship because everyone would say the name of another sailor, but none would say the name of the captain. They all knew nothing and were interested in nothing and cared about nothing, so we learned nothing, and we could really only talk about nothing with them.

Roger and I were alone on our quest to finding the truth or simply to occupying ourselves so we wouldn’t go mad with boredom. We aren’t sailors, you see; we are the legacy of sailors past and our mothers were so proud of our fathers that they couldn’t wait to send their children down the same road. We were lazy, and we admitted it, and everyone knew it, and we didn’t care about the ship or the trip or the fish that everyone was so fascinated with. I would even say that if it weren’t for the captain, we’d be chasing mermaids.

But the trip has ended before we’ve reached our destination. Bulgaria, the captain cried the name of the land, but it is nowhere in the map. Just the Black Sea and the endless Ottoman empire. He’s out; the captain is out! The mystery’s unveiled, yet veiling even more. Roger’s dull with surprise and fascination; everybody is. But I don’t know what is to happen now, friend. And I’m a little scared. But in case we set on sail again, I’d better get my mermaid net.