skit #37: between coxswains at sea

Oars paired astride down the length of the hull, fluttering inconsequentially like cilia against the immensity of a petri dish. The wind whipped, the salt stung, and all the other stimuli oarsmen expected. But who was to know if they made any progress at all? The oarsmen never saw the prow cut the blue Mediterranean silk in two, only the turbulent wake of water their paddling had upset.

The eight oarsmen were indistinguishable from one another, sometimes accidentally calling each other by, and even responding to, misnomers. They were identical: brawny arms, feeble legs, slack faces that tightened to normalcy under exertion, essential musculatures accrued naturally over time not unlike the way mountains erode. They were unified: silly little uniforms, a tendency to symmetries and parallels, an inaudible rhythm dictating when to beat their hearts and when to tauten their sinews, an allegiance to velocity over direction, a duty to a system.

There were eight of them plus a ninth who was everything they were not. The coxswain must have miscalculated their trajectory. He failed to spot any landmarks on the horizon. He pondered their coordinates, his arms idle and akimbo, the steering paddle reeling like an unfed dog's tail.

Many boats rowed at sea, each confidently traveling in congruent directions, opposite directions, or without direction. Over great distances, coxswains exchanged anonymous glances, knowing not each others' names nor recognizing each others' faces, performing pantomimes of admiration, envy, condescension, apathy. These charades were often misinterpreted over such great distances, but it was their often only hope of communication, for the Mediterraneans spoke many diverse and dying languages. To fear misinterpretation was foolish, as boats' courses rarely intersected.

Over the ages, sailors' fantasies graduated to rumors, rumors to tales, tales to myths, which are the manifestations of gods' dreams. The boats at sea were in search of promised islands: of monkeys, of mangoes, of buxotic virgins, of milkcows equipped with inexhaustible udders, of orifice-flowered forests, of ethanol geysers, of epiphanous lotus-meats, of undiscovered anti-carcinogens, of abandoned 5-star hotels, of decomissioned war engines, of crystalline cellphone reception, of unowned beachfront properties, of tax-free amenities. This legendary archipelago promised an island for everyone, for every need.

Few had maps or navigators or could read the constellations. Devoid of landmarks, a coxswain of this sea could only deduce his coordinates relative to the other boats' trajectories. They followed each other, sometimes in circles, sometimes not, rowing tenaciously towards these islands no cartographer had yet charted. There were nothing in those waters if not confidence between coxswains at sea.