The Voyage of Milagros:
A Serial Adventure of the High Seas

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

The chosen craft as my life line in this instance was an old schooner, named Milagros. To the unseasoned she may have appeared aged or run down with her weather worn gunnels and salt scoured decks but to me it was coupe de foudre. The instant I stepped from plank to deck I could feel the mercury of life begin to ease from my veins. Like the citizens of Uruk who rejoiced and danced in the streets upon hearing from Anu, chief god of the city, that the oppressive life placed upon them by their king Gilgamesh would soon be lifted I too danced, on legs stiffened by to much time on land. My laughter could be heard throughout the harbor as my stiffened legs began to loosen and move to the gentle motions of a harbor bound sea.

Like a blessed yet painfully fleeting and transient return to the maternal womb of infancy, warm and comfortable, familiar and secure, I sauntered effortlesly between the riggings of Milagros, her moorings embracing arms of security, her masts great sentinels gaurding my purposely drifting castle, her chambers a bosum providing the milk and marrow of my existence. Yet tempered was this return to my salinic and amniotic home, given the dark nature of this endeavor, indeed the dreaded purpose of my current mission. Like Conrad's tale within a tale, I recognize others too gravely await the outcome of this formidible challenge, as they are to be indelibly affected by the outcome of this intimate journey into the heart of darkness, to face the "horror" of my own personal Kurtz. Only three month journey, but the lifetimes of all eternities hang in the balance of its ultimate resolution...

Though the primary purpose of my quest is the resolution I speak of it is not the entirety of my journey. I know that the reckoning that is on the horizon may have dire consequences, however I also realize that other outcomes are possible. I have learned not to let my foreboding nature consume me like some hideous malignancy that grows silently, slowly replacing living order with a deathly chaos. In the end, the cancer, choking and bleeding, kills all in its path, willing to sacrifice its self as a means to its end. It is true that in my past I have let my mental state spiral downward out of control and like a cancer, have been willing and wanting to take my own life as a means to an end. But as I have said I have learned to suppress my foreboding nature and now refuse to let chaos take control. In keeping with this effort I�m looking forward to both the solitude and companionship built through the camaraderie required to sail a ship like Milagros on the open seas.

So then; weigh the melancholy a man feels at leaving his own known world against the heady joy of a new adventure. This was I, rolling slightly in the wake and making way for my cabin when this delicate mental balance tipped with speed toward the fathoms: Standing before the very door I aimed to enter was Emilio.

At first I did not know him. He had grown his beard, for one. And he lost an eye along the way, a dismal trade indeed. But it is the nature of such men to lose various of their orbs and digits atop the barstools and gambling tables along every seaboard. When last I shared a birth with Emilio, it was I who nearly lost a valued appendage.

Emilio is a large man; in equestrian measurements he would stand 13 maybe 14 hands, by imperial measurements he is six feet two, maybe three inches from head to toe. He weighs nearly 20stones, 280 English pounds. His back is broad and his chest is barreled. I once saw him pick-up a dwarf by wrapping one of his massive hands around the poor mans head and then toss him over the gunnels into the harbor of Gibraltar. When an innocent bystander, new to the ship, who was standing not more than two feet from me asked Emilio what the man had done to deserve such quick and humiliating punishment he turned to him, and with out uttering a sound, picked the man up like a sack of potatoes and tossed him too. I asked no questions, just stood and watched as if nothing had happened. To this day I am not sure what swerve of the dwarf caused Emilios� sway, but I am sure it was of little import. For Emilio even the slightest thing, real or imagined could set his blood to boil. Though it had been several years sense the incident I described, it was still clear in my mind. I wondered if time had cooled the fires of Emilios� temper as I extended my hand in friendship.

"Ishmael,"

It was my name. But the familiar moniker lost all meaning as it passed the broken teeth and invisible lips of Emilio. It became an exotic port of call, spoken by a native of the region. Portugal? Senegal? One was as likely to trace the patterns of Emilio's speech as his lineage. He pushed his thick hand at mine and shook me to the shoulder. Before loosing his grip, the giant man tugged me full across the threshold into the dank and dimly-lit cabin. It seemed we had resumed our past acquaintance.

Once alone, Emilo and I regarded each other as if mute. I felt the sway of the moored vessel through the heels of my boots. I heard the muffled barking of the first mate, two decks above, doubtless chewing the ear of some hapless, sapling seaman. I took in the strong scents of salt fish from the galley and unwashed flesh from the man before me. When Emilio reached a hand into the folds of his shirt, I felt nearly a swoon come over me. At once I recalled the circumstance of our last encounter and feared a retelling of it's end. But what emerged was no rusting blade: it was a graven image, a Daguerreotype as full of gleam and light as the day of its making. He lifted it to my face to reveal its subject, the haunting and lovely face of a young woman.

"She's my daughter, dead to me now."

Catherine. Of course I recognized her before I absorbed the image full start, as Emilio knew I would. I would never need a picture to know that haunting visage, etched into the dark reaches my brain and tattooed on my soul from the moment I first beheld her. Not even a blind and deaf skalliwag, alone in his eternal silent darkness - yet in her presence for even an instant - could not deny her palpable and sonic beauty; and yea, then endeavor to risk everything in this world to possess her. This I too had tried and failed to achieve, as had others done and faultered before me; ultimately costing me everthing in this world, and the promise of eternal salvation in the next. Catherine. Some things are unpossessable. Her duplicitous betrayal of my freely flowing love has disconnected precious reason from man, the very thing that makes us men. Her untoward death by an unreasoned, vengeful hand, my hand, disconnected from the newly diseased mind of its master, now provides Emilio with a burgeoning, purposeful momentum, barrelling uncontrollably through the reaches of time and space, yet always in my direction. A dread vector for the remainder of his life, borne the very instant my own more gay purpose was extinguished. Catherine is gone, taking all that I have or ever will have with her. Yet from her watery grave, she exists in this swaying dark cabin as sure as Emilio and myself stand inside its wooden threshold; working her machinations, ensuring my past due contribution to our mutually assured destruction. In life her blood coursed with the blood of her father, now her father's blood boils in the loss of the cooling eddys and laminar currents of her own.

My reverie is suddenly broken...

Emilio quickly pockets Catherine's picture with his left hand and draws his dagger high over my shoulder with his right. "The bell tolls for us both, but right soon for you, Ishmael," his one remaining eye blazing with passion...

Without thought or reason I moved my body, instinctively, not away from the approaching arch of Emilio�s dagger as most men might have done, but in closer, thus reducing the cutting force of Emilio�s massive arm and putting me into a position to strike a man, any man, including a man as colossal as Emilio in his most vulnerable areas. Simultaneously, Emilio�s arm crushed the top of my shoulder as my knee splintered his scrotum. The force of our two bodies colliding caused Emilio�s dagger to twist slightly in his tightened fist. As his twisted dagger pierced the air I swung my elbow, now bent to a sharp point squarely at my attackers temple. I could feel crushing bone, the slumping mass of Emilio�s body from my blows and the dagger ripping through my skin.

Strangely, there was humor in the moment. Two men in mortal embrace, one half again as large as the other, ungainly as a goshawk with her tiny mate. And me, pierced by a talon no less! I was as near to laughing as to weeping.

By inches Emilio slumped against me. I knew I'd estimated the weight of the man poorly just fifteen minutes past: He was three hundred pounds if ten. I would have guessed it dead weight now, after the sickening dent I'd made with elbow to temple, yet Emilio breathed still and steady as a sleeping child. With much effort, I dragged his mass to the lower bunk and rolled him atop it. I nearly fell myself in a heap beside him.

When he woke -- if he woke -- what would he think to see me still in the room for which he planned my murder? In time I would learn just what.

Cooleridge�s verse echoed in my head as I surveyed the wounded mariner�

�I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!�

My guilt premature? Emilio was not yet cold; I knew I was in for more than half a south�ard gale � and maybe a good run o�er the grey and blue with this bloodied Albatross. I shook the man awake, gently. He groggily tugged his long-grey beard. Suddenly, his glittering eye flashed with recognizance and stopped me cold.

I wondered what image was flashing across Emilo�s remaining eye? Was it my image he saw standing beside him? My shirt soaked in blood from the gaping wound caused by the dagger he held with a deadly grip just minutes past but was now in another�s hands, my hands, and held with the same deadly grip just a short distance from Emilio�s one receptacle of light. Was this the image he saw? Or was it another? Maybe some distant memory of another, similar encounter or maybe an image less violent, an image soft around the edges, an image of his only son, the captain of this very vessel, or maybe he saw the beautiful face of his wife, may her soul rest in peace, or the face of Catherine his dead daughter whose death he feels he must avenge. Whatever it is he saw I may never know, I can only say that Emilio�s reaction was surprising.

"Finish me."

The huge man spat the words. His one eye locked to mine, somehow meeting both at once. His breath came weakly, barely moving the great bellows of his breast. I watched an inky well of dark blood pool in one ear and trail a thin rivulet along the man's meaty jaw. I had seen Emilio in worse repair, but 'twas years ago and as a younger man. What lay before me, though massive, was much reduced. I feared this might be the giant's final voyage.

"I won't," I told him, leaning in. "Nor will you finish me, old man."

With that Emilio slipped back into the grace of slumber. I pulled myself upright, nearly stumbling from exhaustion, frank pain and the gentle, confounding roll of the good ship Milagros.

It would not be long before the sleeping man's son, the young Captain Carlo, would return to see after his father's accommodation. It was his custom to make full rounds before setting sail; and rounding on such a sight as his father's supine and mangled bulk would surely put him out of sorts. So I set quickly to work cleaning the man, gently mopping the blood from his furred face and rank lapel. I left him mostly shroud in a seaman's blanket, and I placed an empty bottle of Spanish rum beside him. It was an illusion even Carlo could fail to reveal!

Minding then to my own toilet, I stowed my soiled shirt and pants beneath my bunk and washed briefly in the small starboard basin. Brushing aside the small bottle of laudanum in my duffle, I found a measure of clear spirits with which to clean my wound. A new blouse and pants would do as well� If I were to meet the First Mate for assignments - and launch the first salvo of my freshly minted plan - I would need a more gentlemanly bearing.