The Shipbuilder
Part of the Weather Reports Collection
Hit play for some ambient background audio as you read (sound by freesound_community on Pixabay)
That morning, the hazy blue sky, stained with soft washes of pastels from the waking sun, was reflected in the calm sea, erasing the dividing line between them. At that age, I’d often wondered what would happen if I sailed out to the end of the ocean on a day like that. Would I sail off into the sky?
“Now, now, there is nothing to worry about. Mommy will be home before you know it,” she said as she tousled my hair. “I wish you could come with me and be my little captain, but someone has to stick around to take care of David while I’m gone.”
She frowned at the face I made. “Oh, you two will have a great time together. Now, please listen to him and do what he asks, okay? Help him with the chores?”
I forced a nod, wishing more than anything she would stay. Tears welled up, blurring her face as if she were already beginning to disappear.
“Please don’t be sad, Henry,” she said, kneeling in front of me and grabbing my hand. Her thin lips stretched into a wide smile, and then she reached into her jacket.
“Here, I got you something.”
She placed a short length of triangular glass on my open palm and turned it slowly, back and forth. The crystal caught the morning light and cast a rainbow across my fingers. Magic.
“This rainbow has travelled reeeeally, really far to get here. I like to think of it as a message of sorts.”
“From the sun?”
“That’s right, Henry, a message from the sun. A message you can only see with this piece of glass. I won’t be nearly as far from you as the sun, but I can use this crystal, too, to send you messages. So, when I’m gone, any time you see this rainbow, it will be me letting you know I’m thinking about you and that I love you very much. I’ll be sure to send an extra special rainbow when I reach the end of my journey.”
I rubbed the tears from my eyes with my sleeve and then turned the glass in my hand again. She suddenly pulled me into her arms and hugged me hard.
“Just remember, Henry, the crystal doesn’t work in the dark.”
Mother set out on a solo voyage that morning, with the goal of circumnavigating the globe faster than anyone had done before. David said it was because she wanted to prove herself, but to whom, I’m not sure. She was already everything to me.
Three weeks into her journey, she encountered a freak atmospheric event that came out of nowhere and took everyone by surprise. A storm in a category all its own.
They found her boat a week later, capsized, drifting where the two oceans meet. It was mangled and hollow. Her body was never found.
I would lie in bed for hours, listening to recordings of her transmissions just so I could hear her voice. But the one I couldn’t get out of my head was her last. Over the sound of howling winds, she describes strange lights shimmering in the gathering clouds.
“…so beautiful…like a rainbow in the storm.”
David would never win any stepfather-of-the-year awards, but he was a brilliant engineer and shipwright. In the wake of our loss, with a desperate need to distract us both, he poured himself into teaching me the art of shipbuilding.
Where he failed as a father, David excelled as a tutor. And I was an eager student, for I knew that if I were ever to find Mother, I needed to know how to build the perfect boat.
We began with simple concepts and spent much of our time building scale models from balsa wood. Many of the methods he was teaching, he claimed, were thousands of years old and had been passed down from father to son for generations. It was a forced smile, but he meant well.
As the years passed, the complexity and range of his teachings increased. I learned to sail, to read the skies, and to navigate by the stars. For every hour we spent discussing theory in his office, we would spend ten on the water. I lived for those outings, where I never felt alone. Out there, she was always with me.
Thanks to David, I blazed through a naval architecture degree. My capstone project was the culmination of everything I’d been taught. It was the manifestation of a boat I’d been building in my mind for more than a decade, improving with every new insight and with every advancement in materials or technology. An unsinkable vessel that could survive any storm.
I graduated at the top of my class. The prototype was featured in every major academic journal and even made the covers of Sail and Popular Mechanics.
“Your mother would have been quite proud of you, Henry.”
It was one of the few times David acted like a real father, beaming with pride for his son’s achievements. Or so I thought at the time. In hindsight, I think he was more proud of himself. My achievements were validation of his brilliance, not mine.
David died of an aneurysm a few months later, as we were midway through taking my prototype to a full-size, more capable vessel I would christen, Prism. True to its DNA, this iteration is designed to withstand even the most violent squall, or so the simulations have demonstrated. The true test will be the crucible of a real storm. Mother’s storm.
And then, it arrived. Twenty years to the day from when Mother sailed off into oblivion, the entire town woke to find a colossal shelf cloud parked about a half mile off the coast. It towered into the sky and ran as far as the eye could see in either direction. Even more concerning was the faint hum that seemed to be coming from the cloud mass.
The formation and its odd, endless noise were spectacle enough, but what gave me goosebumps and nearly stopped my heart were the sweeping waves of prismatic light that shimmered across the surface of the clouds.
Nobody could make sense of it. Not the meteorologists. Not the scientists. Conspiracy theorists spewed their endless theories, but no one truly understood.
I did. It was all for me.
I’m a little concerned, though, that her final message took so long to get here. She must be very, very far away. But how could she be farther than the sun? No matter. I throw myself into the final build of the boat and start gathering provisions to last the journey.
I’m coming, Mother.
Day 23 Since Message Received
Even before the voluntary evacuation orders were issued, most of the town had already packed up and headed inland. The clouds and noise spooked them. It didn’t help that the animals were acting strange, too. Reports of mass beachings of right whales just north of here, and sightings of other species found in these waters that simply don’t belong here, thousands of miles from their natural home.
What sent many into panic was the research vessel that went missing after entering the stormfront. Last I heard, they still haven’t been found, no SOS, no beacon. Nothing.
There’s no time for distractions. I throw myself into finishing the boat, but with no one around to assist me, it’s taking much longer than it should.
Day 87 Since Message Received
The inland sky behind me looks a lot like the sky I remember from the day Mother left us standing on this very dock. Unlike that day, there is no gathering of family or friends to send me off. No one to cheer my departure.
I take one last look at the town where I was born, and then turn to face the sea, never to look back again.
I motor out of the bay into deeper water where I raise the sails. They catch the coastal wind and drive me toward the wall of clouds, out to where the two oceans meet.
As I approach the formation, the hum gets louder, and I catch a heavy scent of iron on the wind. As the boat penetrates the dense, sea-level fog, the strong wind that brought me here is reduced to a light breeze, but it’s enough to keep the boat moving.
Day 115 Since Message Received
I’ve been floating, directionless, for weeks now. The fog is unrelenting, and the instruments are useless. I get nothing but static on the phones and radios. No chatter, no weather reports. By all measures, there seems to be no “other side” to this weather I’m in.
The hum is a constant and annoying companion that prevents anything resembling sleep. I fear it might soon take my mind. At times, I think I’m staring into the sky only to catch my reflection staring back at me.
The nights are terrifying, when the dense atmosphere becomes more dramatic, churning and boiling, seemingly lit by a faint glow from somewhere within. When I aim the spotlight on the water, I catch fleeting shapes of dark leviathans. Their eerie cetacean songs echo in disharmony with the oscillating drone of the fog. On many nights, the scent of blood creeps into my nostrils.
Day is an endless shroud, each looking identical to the one before. It is morning now, I think. The hum hums its constant song, and the main sail flutters in the light breeze. If only the weather would change its rhythm. I would welcome raging violence over this endless lull.
I’m lying on the deck, twirling Mother’s gift between my fingers. The diffused light of the fog prevents any of her messages from coming through, relegating the prism to a useless trinket. I like to bring it up to my eye and turn it, watching the sea, fog, and boat tumble in kaleidoscopic impossibilities. Sometimes I stare through the glass like this for hours.
And then, I see something through the crystal that breaks the pattern. Up ahead, off the starboard side, something floats in the water with limbs outstretched. I scramble to the pulpit to get a better view.
A body.
“Mother?” the word falls from my lips.
I frantically lower the sails, engage the engine, and turn the boat in a wide arc. I nearly lose sight of the body, but manage to find it again. About ten feet from it, I kill the engine and grab the boathook.
I lean over the rail as the drift closes the distance between us. I tighten my grip on the hook while my heart attempts to leap from my chest. The fog’s hum climbs into the higher octaves.
The body bobs in the choppy water, causing the limbs to flop up and down, like flapping wings attempting to fly. It is face down and stuffed into faded yellow weather gear covered with patches of algae and clinging barnacles. Mother’s yellow jacket.
I use the hook to draw the body to the side of the boat, where I get a clumsy grip and struggle to drag it onto the deck. I can’t believe how heavy it is.
I take a second to catch my breath. The body lies in a contorted heap on the deck, draining seawater back into the sea. The yellow fabric is alive with tiny, squirming larvae.
It takes both hands to roll it onto its back. I retch when I see the face. A man’s face. Bloated and pocked with holes, exposing pinkish tissue and bleached white teeth, lips mostly gone, giving the face a nightmarish grin. He stares back at me with hollow cavities where the eyes should be. Remnants of a scraggly beard cling to what remains of jellyfish cheeks.
I fall back and struggle to take a breath. The world tumbles in kaleidoscopic impossibilities.
Then, something bumps the side of the boat. Then another bump.
I crawl on hands and knees to investigate the source of the collision. The hum is scraping the lower octaves now, and an odd scent of jasmine wafts in, mixing with the sea-salted odor of rotting flesh.
My mind stutters, but my eyes are fixed, wide and unblinking, unable to turn away from what is in the water. Another body thuds against the hull, one of dozens bobbing in the sea around the boat. Yellow and swollen like split-ripened fruit. They flap their stiff wings, preparing to take flight off the end of the ocean.
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Audio sample by freesound_community on Pixabay.
This is wonderful stuff, makes you want to know more, and it's definitely got 'must be turned into a much longer story' vibes going. A novella, maybe?
Great story!!