Adrift

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable" - Seneca

An unanchored vessel adrift in the vast oceans. So it seems that the sands of time have almost ceased to flow. From dawn to dusk, and then dawn once more, a routine which grinds itself into reality, effectively numbing any sense of anticipation. To be in dire want of navigational aids, yet the night is cloudy and as fate should have it, a broken compass. A distant storm brews in the horizon, its ominous presence revealed by flashes of lightning stretching across the heavens. Through each passing moment, its features are etched clearer and its hissing roar growing all the more sinister.

Up upon this forsaken deck, I feel the impending gale grazing my cheeks. I sense the reverberations echoing beneath me through the hollow wave-battered hull. I hear its silent groans of despair and decay, whispering of neglect. There is no turning back from this calamity, where the winds and waves toss the vessel, that is where it shall go. There is neither fear, dread nor trepidation, only a numbed resignation to fate. To what end this vessel meets, that will be mine too. The voyage has drawn out over the years and I have learned that the seas remain as unpredictable as ever.

Deep down within I do not have the courage to hope, much less smile just once more. As I recount the legends of those who defied society and sought out new worlds, I see the prospects of myself being ranked within their league grow dimmer with each passing day. Legends and myths which herald back to days when men sojourned to the ends of the world, seeking for a multitude of answers to the mysteries of life. To what pillars did they cling onto within as the world around them crumbled? How then did they fare through the darkest nights of melancholic solitariness?

I have undertaken this solitary journey not by choice, but rather, coerced by fate. As far as I'm concerned, few, if any will ever understand why I am aboard this vessel. Perhaps, just perhaps, those who are forced to board vessels of their own will recognize my reasons for doing so. Many question this unconventionality but the best answer I have to offer them is no more than a faint smile and a shrug. Thus, here I stand alone, the sole soul upon this derelict.