Barnacle Bill & the Night of Sighs

"Let me ask you again. Will you see to my daughter's care after I'm gone?"

I nodded. "Of course I will, but you already knew that."

He opened a drawer under his vast chart table and produced the same envelope -- again. "Haiku passes to you and Akira on my passing, as a Delaware Corporation, wouldn't you know? You'll need to get your captain's license to be legal, strictly speaking, but I'll leave all that to you."

I think a lot passed between us in those uncertain moments, too much for mere words to convey, anyway, but I did see a tear or two in his eyes, and maybe I felt a few of my own, but who knows, really?

"Patrick, I don't know what to say..." I think I finally managed to say.

"Then don't say a thing, Spud. Now, where's that good boy, my little Max?"

+++++

Peel an onion and you'll find many layers.

I wonder if that's always been the case with us, or did we evolve our thick layers of protective deceit to simply hide our true natures? If only from ourselves...?

Pat's daughter, Akira, rarely ventured from her stateroom, and she never talked to anyone.

Carolyn's boyfriend, I soon found out, was a physician. And an oncologist, and this Dr. Andrews was, in fact, Akira's oncologist. And it turned out he already had everything he needed onboard, from bags of the latest chemotherapeutics to powerful anti-nausea compounds, and he even had a small, desktop-sized device that produced reasonably accurate lab profiles of blood draws. So, in effect, Haiku had been turned into a floating oncology clinic.

Which was why four patients from the University Medical Center were loaded onboard Thursday evening, and why those four were paying a quarter of a million dollars per person for the trip to Papeete. With eight other passengers paying a hundred grand a pop this little three-week trip was going to generate almost two million in income. Five or six such trips might pay for Haiku, and everything after that would be gravy -- or maybe enough to pay for her staggering upkeep.

Pat had a small cabin under the pilothouse, and I do mean small, and the first time I stuck my head in there I was stunned to find an otter curled up on a pillow in the middle of Pat's sea-berth. It looked up at me and blinked once, then resumed its nap; Pat simply looked up at me and smiled, only now his eyes looked almost exactly like the huge snowy owl's that I'd seen perched on my spreaders in the marina. Huge, amber, and studious -- he looked at me over his Ben Franklin reading glasses, and it felt like he was daring me to question what I saw.

"Yes? What is it, Spud?"

"Everything's loaded aboard. The tide turns at 0330."

"Are all our provisions loaded in the galley?"

I nodded. "Matilda is getting everything squared away. Do you want something before going down for the night?"

He shook his head. "No. All the assets I discussed were transferred to the banks in Papeete this morning. Did that nurse get here yet?"

"Yes. She'll stay in the little steward's cabin off the treatment room."

"Good."

"Patrick? This boat just doesn't make sense. How could you have possibly known?"

"What? That sooner or later our little earth would have to take a step back from the precipice? That sailing ships would once again be the most viable means of moving people across oceans? But Spud...it's all a game, we live on a giant chess board. You just have to learn to see beyond the next move, but in truth I never expected to live to see this come about."

"Patrick, you're talking as if you've been expecting the collapse of civilization?"

"The collapse? Oh, no, far from it, Spud. This was just a momentary reset, a temporary change of course, but that's the way it's always happened. Nothing lasts forever, Spud. Whole industries will collapse -- but new industries will emerge, and right now you and I are simply assisting in a brief, rapid relocation of assets, helping the next generation of change to emerge, to begin again."

"So, we're just cogs in some vast, cosmic machine?"

He laughed. "No, more like footnotes in a never-ending story. Maybe our names will be mentioned in an index somewhere, but I rather doubt that. So, this Matilda? She'll stay here and her husband will come along on Tiki?"

"Yes, along with Heidi, the other girl that came over with us. She's asked to rejoin the crew."

"I dare say. Anything will be better than conditions here for the next few years. So, Matilda's children will make the trip on Tiki?"

I nodded. "And we're carrying four passengers."

"She might be big enough to carry the mail to regional islands, assuming you can find crew for her."

"That won't be a problem in Papeete," I added. "Assuming the weather doesn't get too wild, anyway."

"Oh, it will fluctuate as it destabilizes and seeks a new equilibrium. Hopefully we won't lose satellite coverage anytime soon."

"Any news from the States I need to know about?"

"Oh," he sighed, "not much. Some talk of nationalizing the response to rebuild ports on the west coast, more blather about a new ship-building program. And of course, the usual suspects going on and on about the need to become a multi-planetary species, yada-yada-yada. I did hear something about the Gulf Stream cooling rapidly, so Europe may be in for a cold spell."

"But that means fewer hurricanes in the Gulf, right?"

Pat nodded. "Complex systems only survive be maintaining equilibrium, Spud. You'll want to concentrate on moving people from Hawaii this year, then moving many of these same people to Auckland or Sydney next year. By that time you'll need to have started work on Haiku II, and with her you can link up to Singapore, then possibly even Japan. By the time you retire, you should reestablish contact with North America, and who knows, maybe air transport will resume by then, as well."

I looked at the otter, then at Patrick. "This an old friend of yours?"

His amber eyes blinked slowly, but then he just looked away -- trying to hide a growing smile. "We've been together for some time, you might say."

"Like Max and me?"

"Precisely. What was the name of that television show you used to watch with your father? About a war veteran sailing the South Pacific, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Adventures in Paradise. James Michener wrote a few of the episodes, but it was his idea, when all was said and done."

"Ah, Michener. Some Enchanted Evening. Did you ever see the musical? In person, I mean?"

I smiled too. "Mary Martin, and yes. I don't think I'll ever forget that night."

"Yes. Funny what we choose to remember. And what we fail to forget. Do you think of him often?"

"My dad? Yeah, all the time."

"Well, I suppose he'll be with you then, on your next adventure?"

"I hope so."

"You'll take care of Max, won't you?"

"Of course, but..."

"You'd better go topsides and check the rigging for ice. And be careful, Spud."

His whole demeanor had been changing by the minute, wistful here, then playful, but I went topsides and walked the vast decks, shining a bright light up into the rigging, knocking some snow and ice off one of the headsail furling units as I thought about what he'd meant. Then I checked in with Matilda and found she was baking brownies, and I talked with Carolyn and her doctor friend before I went back to Patrick's tiny cabin to say goodnight.

But he was gone. Simply gone, and it was as if he'd never really been there. Or maybe he'd never really existed at all, yet Pat's otter was standing on his pillow just then, playing with the pure white feathers from the wing of a snowy owl.

+++++

Coming south from Hawaii, you typically spot the craggy spires of Mou'a Roa on the island of Moorea before your eyes find the twin spires of Tahiti's Mont Orohena, and that was the case on our seventeenth day out of Honolulu. Haiku of course handled the passage with ease, and her long waterline and voluminous sail-plan ensured our passage was a fast one. Doc Andrews had his hands full, however, as two of our passengers were oncology patients and another was on dialysis. Had Patrick installed a single, portable dialysis unit just for himself, or had he envisioned Haiku becoming some sort of inter-island hospital ship? I suppose I'll never know the answer to that question, but with his God's eye view of things, notably the prescience to build Haiku in the first place, I had been left in awe of his grasp of time. And of our place in the stream.

And yes, I missed him terribly. So did Max. And of course, so did Charles, Pat's infernal sea otter. From time to time I saw that great white owl, too. He stood watch from the second set of spreaders on the foremast, though occasionally he came down to the deck to take food from Akira, usually a few slivers of raw salmon. She would stroke the feathers on his head and often I could hear her speak in slow, soothing cadences to him, but eventually he'd head back up to his perch and resume his scans of the sea ahead.

Charles and Max, on the other hand, were soon best friends, and when I hit the bunk for some sleep Max would curl up beside me -- and Charles would curl up on Max. I started, or should I say restarted, having those most peculiar dreams on that first passage, too. The medieval castle perched over the sea and the infinite bloom of cherry blossoms. I could feel Japan in those dreams, Japan -- calling out to me. But hadn't Patrick told me as much?

I spent what time I could with Akira, yet she remained cool, almost aloof, the entire voyage. She spoke gently when she talked of her father, yet it wasn't a stretch to say that she was still very uncomfortable with his memory. Things had apparently remained unsettled since the night of sighs, which was what she called the night that Mount Rainier erupted, and I began to suspect that his memory would never be a pleasant one, at least for her.

Matilda was baking cinnamon scones our last morning out, and Haiku was alive with the scent. Our passengers came up on deck and pointed at Moorea's craggy-spired majesty as they sipped jasmine tea, but few bothered to look aloft at the owl scanning our far horizons. He remained up there the two days we were in Papeete, coming down only to take a few slivers of salmon from Akira, and he remained on his perch even after Tiki arrived, and as cargo and provisions were reloaded aboard Haiku.

Indeed, the old owl remained on his perch as we departed the old quay and turned north, as we sailed free of civilization once again, bound for Honolulu under his patient, watchful eyes. I was walking the deck later that afternoon when I felt a fluttering of wings by my side, and I felt the owl land on my left shoulder. Perhaps I was too stunned to move, yet it was funny, too, in a way. You see, I was not at all surprised when he began to whisper in my ear.

(c) 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | this was just a piece of fiction, plain and simple.