Day 90 on the Gravanok

Author’s note: The voyage to publication is long and the writer’s maturation process never-ending. I began writing strenuously in 2016. My first manuscript, which might be considered a passable epic novel by those with a generous heart, was 190,000 words, twice the ideal size. I divided the work in half, of necessity, and placed it in the hands of several agents, who were gracious to me with constructive feedback. The work needed to be split into thirds, not halves, and augmented with better scenes, better dialogue, and more cohesion.
            The three portions of this Crumble’s End series, for matters of practicality, are now called Trilogy Volume I, II, and III. The target size for each book is about 90,000 words. Trilogy Volume I, as of today, is 40% rewritten. Some portions have been reworked hard and will be redone again, but the original heroes remain. They are people whom I know and love. (Some of them are not human, but they are people, just the same.) They are my children, my teachers, and my friends. Occasionally, they are my undying and implacable enemies.
            The sailor’s log below is an illustration of my attempt to speak through a non-human species, the travo-turav-an. I ought to write hundreds of pages of their backstory—thousands if I had the fortitude—to understand them well. How do they think, and why? How do they speak, and why? What are their dreams? Their values? Their social structures? Their spiritual beliefs, including their thoughts on death? How do they deal with suffering?
            Thank you for joining me on this Magellanic voyage to the Isles Unknown, where wonders await—creatures, and music, and nature never witnessed or documented before. We must arrive safely at these Isles, collect the very best we can find, as much as we can carry in the hold, and then return to SHOW what we have discovered. If all we do is TELL, we’ve done nothing at all.

TAT

Day 90
From the Log of Barkan II, XO of the Gravanok

            It’s been three months today since we set sail with Captain TAT. The boys-a are becoming men-ya. There have been no fistfights in over a week, and we’ve had no deaths, despite the two who went overboard in shark-filled waters.
            The winds are west-southwest, strong and steady, but there’s a growing darkness approaching. The sheets of the mains’l are billowing proper, so we’re good for the moment. The Captain has to be satisfied with our progress, though you’d never know it from his face. We’re on schedule according to his detailed maps.
            The Captain was ill for two weeks, though he kept that news from the crew by pouring all his time into his maps and into the reports from sailors who have been this way before. He forbade me from speaking of his illness with the crew. “But write whatever you need to into your log,” he said. “One day you will be Captain, the first travo captain of a great ship. The least important thing you record during fair weather might save you in a storm.”
The Captain says he believes I will live far longer than he ever will—because of this voyage. Though I desire to have my own ship, “from knee to knee,” as my mother used to say, I do not want to be in command now. Not for this venture! I appeal to Providence. The Captain’s health is of great importance to me, and I will guard it for him.
            The Captain was ill, as I said, coughing and short of breath. He said the struggle to breathe felt like the times we were stranded on the COVID Isles, breathing those mystical fumes. Three times we were marooned there, once for 18 months. We lived on breadfruit; everything we ate was tasteless. Our sails were shredded then and took much labor to repair. They’re not as snappy as they were before, but they still hold the wind.
            Senbet is never far from my mind. I should stay focused on my ship duties. But if I don’t write about her at least once a month, I think I’ll go mad. I have beside me the Captain’s mug she gave me on shore. Little did I know then she had asked an artist to paint her face on the underside of it. Her golden locks and ebony cheeks! Her lips are like the heart berries of the shimtal forest, double red and double sweet, with a taste that increases after you eat it.
            The waves are changing. I ought to go check on things, but I can’t stop writing now. This is the one day I permit myself to write about my turav-a. My bride-to-be.
            Sometimes I hardly want to use this mug, lest I break it and lose her image. But I will not live in fear. The image could be lost today, but Senbet will always be with me.
            She planted memories within me on purpose! I once overheard her father, Shak-riar, talking with her. I was sitting behind a bush, right when and where she told me to be.
            “You can’t cast your lot with a sailor-a!” her father said. “If he doesn’t die-ya, he’ll still be gone most of the time-ma. Find a travo more like me-ya, with his toes on the ground and his knees where you can find them-a. Look! Here comes the son-a of Tik-tan. He’s like the back-to-back of his father-a!”
            Tik-nok had a short and narrow frame. Small size was thought to be most advantageous, back in the underground days, when food was scarce and tunnels were tiny, before the escapes of the twelve-and-twelve, all of those rescued by the daring of Chalan, the rider of the Bbboojesh. But after the Bake, after the Crumble’s end, and after the long march south to the mini replica of the whole, was small body size still the best?
            Tik-nok arrived and leaned against the counter. He tented his fingers.
            “Are you thirsty, farmer-a?” asked Senbet, from behind the bar.
            “You know what I like best-a.”
            “You still owe from yesterday-a. Did you come to trade-da?”
            Tik-nok tilted his head toward the grassy field beyond.
            The bleating of goats drifted through, along with their fragrance.
            “Come and see-ya!” said Tik-nok.
            I was in the perfect spot. Senbet must have known exactly what Tik-nok was going to try, and exactly what her father was up to.
            Senbet followed Tik-nok out back to the stock post, where he had five large goats all in a row. Senbet’s father was already combing through the wool of each one, and very carefully checking their hooves. Her father tapped his true knees together, like a signal to Senbet.
            She furrowed her brow.
            “Are you wondering if I want the goats?” she asked.
            Tik-nok stuck his thumbs in his armpits.
            “Nope,” she said. “Thought about it. No goats.” Then she struck her palms against each other, big and dramatic, like in The March of the Djereem, the part of the dance where they slap their hands. “My father says he doesn’t like your goat-sa.”
            Her father was hunched over the fifth goat and leaning forward. When he heard her answer, he fell onto his knees, first the lowers, then the true. He dropped his pale chin against his dark, deer-skin chest strap and rolled it around as if his head were stuck to the strap.
            “They’re not what he’s looking for-a.” said Senbet. “Goodbye, Tik-nok.”
            Then she walked away from him with that sassy walk, one foot crossing the other, one hand high in the air, as if she had just brushed the final crumbs off her fingers.

*          *          *

            The air’s turned cold, and the ship’s starting to rock. No! Not my mug! Ah! Alas, it is shattered.
            There was so much more I wanted to write about Senbet, but there is no time. And I have shirked my duties. Next month I’ll try again.
            The Captain is calling me by name. And what do I have to report? I have lost my Senbet mug! The image of my beloved-a—it has broken into sixty pieces-a.

Bar-kan II

P.S. Like the Captain of the Gravanok, as described by Bar-kan II, TAT was sick for over two weeks with a viral illness. It all seemed so pointless. But once he had recovered enough to return to work, he decided he might as well write about it. Next week’s feature: Turnabout and the Common Cold.

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Three Masted Ship Image by Randall Nyhof