The Castaway

I tried to start a rumor that we’re on the edge.

“You know why there’s a rumor problem on this ship?” My friend asks me. “Because no one ever knows what the f-ck is going on.”

It’s true. I, and many others, have abandoned all foresight- I left it in an Atlantis hotel room. I never know what each day will bring, or where I’ll end up.


Off the Canary Islands, I spotted some dolphins flopping around. Sea life! Oh finally. Everyone was stoked- really an analogue of the human condition. “Look dolphins. DOLPHINS!” And Sharks -the enemy- are actually our best friends: they challenge us to transcend ourselves. We are better humans because of sharks. Swear I saw him, Nicole! You know, that killer whale we adopted during the height of our Free Willy obsession. (I’ll refrain from another sardonic Michael Jackson reference.) But our lil’ leviathan, he’s looking good. It’s pretty perfect out here, like a Lisa Frank cartoon. But I miss swimming in our lost soul fishbowl, American Girls. Wish you were here. Wish you were here. Wish you were here.


I am banshee beat: looking for words in my dictionary, hanging by the pool, fish frying, and crying, wondering why I hang.
I spend a majority of my recreational time reading, playing volleyball or looking at the ocean. I’ve learned to tell time like a maritime, with the light on the water. Sunshine wakes me up at 6:3o am, and it feels really nice. And in my “carefully designed topless swim suite” I’m getting “an even sun tan on [my] back and [my] legs.” My Norwegian fisherman hands are no longer chap, my freckles are coming back.


My restless leg syndrome has led to many blood pumping karate kicks. We got a refill in Dakar, but didn’t leave the port. (Again I want some land, so says the insatiable colonist.) I ate my French fries and gawked at Île de Gorée, a picturesque view of a once nasty, nasty place. The collective gawked too, all shamefaced- blisters- in -the -sun. Senegal was so unbearably hot. I couldn’t sit criss-cross because my legs were so slippery with sweat. I'm in Africa, I thought. I had the chills.

The ocean makes people go nutty. We crossed the equator, and we went swimming in fish guts. But didn’t shave my head. I’m not that foolish. Malaria medication is causing people to hallucinate. Man overboard!

The world is so totally insane- I can’t wrap my mind around the idea of a globe- that it makes everything in the planet Earth seem that much more extraordinary. But I’m pretty sure the world is flat, and I’m pretty sure I’m half way off the deep end. The equator is a myth, a figment of the imagination- I have carte blanche to say it, because I’m “here” and have yet to see “it.” I am circumspect about circumnavigation.


The anarchy of international waters; the clandestine trouble this ship perpetuates; the monkeyshines ; the blind tiger bar. Our jokes are dry, there’s nothing to wash them down with. If this is jail, then count me in! I’m enjoying sobriety: I stick to a single glass of red wine, the Blessed Sacrement.



The sky is pitch black every night but Venus is so f-ing bright, a blinding white elephant. According to Science, the amphibian spends much time on land but develops into an adult in the water. I think that’s accurate. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime.