I'm Fine, but You Appear to Be Sinking Read online

  But the point I’m trying to make is that Gideon is a very private individual. Not one to talk about his personal life. Then, who is? But I have this amazing ability—a super power if you will. It turns out, when I am trapped at sea on a trimaran for two weeks with just one other person, I can see into that person’s inner-most being.

  What do I know about Gideon? Somewhere, a sunny antiseptic suburb is missing a punk kid. A black-jeans-wearing, Dead-Kennedys-listening, establishment-dissing, animal rights-espousing cliché with a skateboard.

  Too much of a boy for the pirating life. But oh, these “oceanic activists,” they’ll take anyone with a student ID card, slap a life jacket on them, and call them an “intern.” When I first came to this conclusion, I was horrified for Gideon, taken advantage of like that.

  “Do your parents know where you are?” I asked.

  “No one knows where I am!” he shouted.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 15

  A trimaran, in case you don’t know, is a kind of sailboat with three hulls. There’s one big hull in the middle where all the stuff goes—the rooms, the pipes, the wires, the food, the maps, the spoons, the salad forks, the people, etc. On either side are two smaller hulls. They are like little hull training wheels. When the boat is floating along straight up and down, they barely touch the water. Only when we tip sharply to one side or the other, does an auxiliary hull make itself useful. I keep thinking there is a metaphor to be drawn from this. But I can’t decide what for.

  My earlier notes indicate that this particular trimaran was a gift to SOSM from a generous leftist entrepreneur who once used it to sail around the world in some manner of record time. It should be noted that he was assisted by a crew of six for this task, none of whom were journalists, teenagers, or dogs.

  To keep the craft light, and the sport of racing pure, the Artemis does not have a motor. There is an engraving at the helm to remind us this (as if we could forget). In narrow calligraphy, it says “At the mercy of the winds and our wits. Godspeed.” Or, that’s what it used to say. Gideon has since destroyed the offending inscription, jabbing at it one night with a Bic pen until the letters began to chip away, the pen fell apart, and his own hands could do no more good. Now it is only a jagged wooden scar, streaked with black ink and knuckle blood. Our new motto. Our epitaph.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 17

  My knowledge of oceanography is limited. Ditto for cartography, marine biology, maritime law, and even basic geography. Never before have I regretted my liberal arts education with such immediacy. Sailboats cannot be piloted by rigorous discourse on Kant or Wittgenstein.

  Foucault would have loved this predicament, I like to think.

  My fourth grade science book was called The Oceans and had a picture of a coral reef on the front with a single tropical fish. The fish was peeking out from behind the reef, like he’d just been caught in the act of something embarrassing. If only I could remember what was inside that tome so clearly.

  What’s the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise? What makes phosphorescents light up? Is a shark a mammal or a fish? The Polynesians invented the sailboat. Somewhere near here is the world’s deepest ocean trench. Squid can hear through their eyes. Yes, that’s right, I know about the way you watch and listen at the same time.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 18

  As a practical measure, Gideon and I have divided the Artemis in half. He gets the front with the crew’s quarters, galley, and navigation suite. I get the back with the captain’s berth, the head, and a room filled with various important-looking boat parts.

  Plymouth is free to roam where he wants. Despite my threats, I wish him no harm. In fact, I like having him sleep in my cabin at night. He is pleasant company. And his breathing covers up other sounds—wave-lapping and ship-creaking and tentacle-suctioning and such.

  Gideon and I are both guilty of trespassing, however. Early on after the storm, I snuck into the galley and took all of the Crystal Light lemonade packets in hopes of warding off scurvy. They are stashed beneath my (formerly C.J. Wyle’s) mattress. I’ve also gone through most of the crew’s footlockers and pilfered the items I like. Gideon appeared yesterday wearing a Panama hat I’d already taken from either Erica or Nelson, so clearly he’s been in here too. But I didn’t say anything about it. Thieves make terrible police.

  Then, today, I caught Gideon in my own quarters. He was riffling about in the captain’s shelves. I grabbed him by his studded belt and threatened him with Court Martial.

  “This is high treason, sailor,” I said.

  He apologized and explained he was only looking for the manual.

  I told him there was a manual for the espresso machine in the galley, and that I had last seen it under the cast iron skillet along with The Joy of Cooking.

  “No,” he said, “the manual for the boat.”

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 23

  This ocean reminds me of someplace I’ve been before. I don’t want to give the impression that I am one of those worldly, traveling reporters, always on assignment to exotic locales. I’ve visited Hemingway’s Paris, yes, and hated it. I spent one semester during college in central northern Europe for my major in western studies. I’ve been to Trinidad, but not Tobago. And I’ve only seen one species of penguin in the wild.

  But somehow this spot—this water and sky and nothing else—is so familiar. I’ve decided it’s not what’s here, but what is absent that I am recalling. Although that’s a depressing way to consider my life on the whole.

  I hate to think I’ve always been this adrift.

  I’ve just now remembered I have parents who are disappointed. I have a half-finished novel in a drawer. I have dirty dishes in a shallow apartment sink. A single neglected houseplant. A certificate that reads “One Year Sober.” A nug of hash I was too anxious to take on the plane, squirreled away in the glove compartment of my car in Lot C16 at Boston Logan. Unreturned phone calls. I have loans I’ll never pay back.

  I’d gladly trade all my Crystal Light packets for that hash.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 25

  Gideon has been feeding the squid. He drops overboard my post-meal scraps of fish that even Plymouth rejects.

  “I’m trying to teach the octopus to eat out of my hand,” he explained when I questioned him about this behavior.

  “I don’t think squid eat fish,” I told him. “I think they primarily eat plankton, which they suck in through their strainer-like teeth.”

  But my doubt did nothing to discourage the boy and after a few moments, bubbles the size of dinner plates appeared at the surface. Something had taken Gideon’s offering.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 26

  Have you ever seen a humpback whale? They are ugly as sin. Really and truly unattractive creatures. Not that this justifies their being shot at from boats and then hacked up and refined into restorative powders and sold by the ounce to Japanese businessmen. I’m just saying this cause might be easier to get behind if the animal in question were a bit cuddlier. Or at the very least, not covered in humps.

  Yet, through it all, Gideon has remained loyal, insisting that his fellow crewmates perished in the name of maritime justice.

  “But what about us, then?” I ask.

  Gideon is not, as a general rule, tolerant of this style of questioning.

  I worry I’ve ceased to be an objective observer of this trip and its crew (living and not). I feel badly about this. Clearly, I am in breach of my original contract with Popular Anarchist Quarterly, having become too personally involved with my subject matter. Yesterday, I got out my tape recorder and tried to interview Plymouth about the mission statement of the organization and its aims for the future. He chose not to speak on the record. Pity. I have been thinking that perhaps if I can make sense of my earlier notes, I could still file my story via message-in-a-bottle. But the wo
rds on those wrinkled yellow pages appear as hieroglyphics. They are from another time and make no sense in this new, modern world. My handwriting doesn’t even look like that anymore.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, February 27

  I’d like to make an amendment to my last entry, if I may. The truth of it is, even if I could file my story, I wouldn’t want to. Because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I’m here on the Artemis, yes, but that wasn’t my assignment. My assignment was to follow Erica and her crew and report back on their vision, their methods, their passions, their most human moments. That’s what it means to be embedded.

  I should have been on the Righteous Fury when it motored bravely into that storm. I should have been at the very front, camera and tape recorder at the ready.

  But instead, when Erica handed me my life jacket, I handed it right back. Not because I knew anything about the impending storm, but simply and inexcusably because I was afraid. I didn’t even know what there was to be afraid of but I knew I was afraid and so I said, “No, I’ll be just fine watching from the boat with Gideon, thanks.” And off they went, without me, rendering my very being on the trip purposeless.

  Of all the many, many things I’ve been ashamed of in my life, I suspect this is perhaps the most shameful of all. The reason: no one knows I’ve done it but me and I still feel ashamed.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, March 2

  Water has become a problem. The greatest irony of the ocean is... do I even need to say it? Every morning, we ration out our daily liquids into shot glasses. I’ve given up on the trick of swallowing my own spit for sustenance; the placebo of it’s gone and I’m only left thirstier.

  Gideon’s been thinking about trying to drink his own piss a la Kevin Costner in Waterworld. I see him eyeing the near-amber stream he allows to trickle off the side of the boat every fourteen hours or so. But Mr. Costner had a special machine for that, I remind him. He reminds me not to watch while he pees.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, March 3

  I wonder about the individuals with whom we used to share this boat. What kind of people choose the seafaring life, anyway? They say the ocean is the last refuge of the damned.

  No, that’s prayer. Prayer is the last refuge of the damned. Regardless.

  Sometimes, Gideon stands on the deck with his head back, arms spread, baggy t-shirt hanging from his sun-blistered shoulders like a sail. What is he offering up?

  Or beckoning in?

  I don’t want to be alone out here either.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, March 4

  Gideon has begun jettisoning things into the sea. First, his video camera, battery-power long since exhausted. Then pots and pans, socks and shoes, etc. He thinks if the boat is lighter, it will have an easier time floating somewhere, as if it were the weight that holds us to the middle of the ocean.

  “That looks fun,” I told him after he tossed a half-gallon jug of hand sanitizer over the side of the boat this morning. He didn’t answer me, but I decided to join in anyway.

  Inside the cabin—which had already grown muggy and airless in the heat—I moved aside boxes of charts and nautical instruments until I found the corpse of the Artemis’ shipboard communication system.

  Early on in the trip, Erica dismantled the radio, saying any attempt to contact authorities for any purpose would be considered an act of mutiny. At the time, this proclamation seemed foolhardy, but as an observer and not an active crewmember, I didn’t feel it was my place to object. Now I’m pretty pissed about it though.

  I pushed the stray knobs and fuses back into their metal casing, picked the whole contraption up, then tied its chords into a ball and carried it back up top. It wasn’t a particularly heavy device, but it made a cathartic splash none the less.

  “Hey! Hey, what the fuck?” Gideon barked. “I was using that.”

  I kicked over the few extra pieces that had fallen to the deck, tidying up.

  “What the fuck?” Gideon said again. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Sorry, pal. Didn’t know you were playing dollhouse with it. I promise I’ll get you some new Lincoln Logs for Christmas.”

  “I wasn’t playing. I was fixing it. I was going to fix it.” His skinny hands balled tight into skinny fists, cracked fingernails digging into his own flesh. He looked as if he might hit me.

  “I ought to throw you overboard,” he said. He unclenched his hands and took hold of the hem of my shirt. His grip was surprisingly light. I made no move to shake him off.

  “You weren’t going to fix the radio,” I said. “It was a useless, broken thing.”

  “You’re a useless, broken thing!” Gideon’s voice split on “broken.” His breath smelled like an old man’s, like something was decaying inside of him. I noticed for the first time that Gideon has lost two teeth since the start of the trip—fairly prominent ones. Blood leaked from his gums as he spoke. I felt around in my own mouth with my tongue to see if I had suffered a similar misfortune, but everything seemed intact.

  “Nope, still okay,” I said.

  Gideon blinked twice, shaking his head. He let go of my shirt and turned away from me, stomping across the deck to where Plymouth lay dozing, unaware of what had just transpired. I watched Gideon nuzzle his face against the dog and whisper conspiratorially to him. After a moment, Plymouth responded with a volley of face licks.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, March 5

  Today, Gideon is giving me the silent treatment. He refuses to leave his quarters except to cook and eat. I worry he may be ill. The quiet is eerie and I find myself willing Plymouth to bark just for distraction.

  Shortly after dusk, I opened Gideon’s door and asked if he wanted to play cards, maybe some Old Maid or Go Fish. He only glared at me from his narrow cot, burrowing his body deeper into the stale sheets.

  I’ve concluded the youth today have no patience for games of chance.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, March 6

  Last night, the wind picked up again and I could hear the sky eating up the stars, cannibalizing itself. From my bed, I yelled to Gideon to raise the sails, thinking we might use those early gusts to push us somewhere. He yelled back that I ought to go fuck myself.

  For hours, we bobbed back and forth. I am getting pretty good at not puking in such conditions. I lay in bed, thinking still and level thoughts, and listening to the Artemis creak and shudder. At the worst of it, I was convinced I heard the suction cups. It’s come to pull us apart as an ally of the ocean, I thought. But there was no added violence from the squid. It was as if he’d found us, lonely in the storm, and was just holding on.

  From the notebook of Captain C.J. Wyle, March 7

  This morning, Gideon came down into my berth, dragging behind him all the line from the main sail.

  “I’m going to lasso the octopus,” he announced. It was the second time he’d spoken to me in three days.

  “Excellent,” I said. “That will be good eating.”

  “No. I am going to lasso it so it will pull us with it to shore.”

  I told him squid don’t live on shore. They live on the bottom of the ocean. This much I am sure of. I remember the page from my science book—colorful, with drawings and a fact box in bold text asking, “Did you know?” This knowledge is unsoiled by childhood forgetfulness or adult self-doubt. “I stake my reputation on it,” I said.

  Gideon shook his head. No, he insisted, if only he could get a line around the octopus, it would take us someplace safe.

  I looked into his jaundiced eyes. Crusted and earnest, they begged for something far, far beyond my capacity to deliver. Why hadn’t he ever asked before? I reached out and let my hand rest at the base of Gideon’s neck. I patted him between his jutting shoulder blades. People who are friends do this for one another. I’ve seen video footage of it. I remember a different place where I knew what it felt like to be touched and held.

  I told Gideon I would hel
p. I told him it was the best plan anyone had come up with.

  We tied a giant slipknot and anchored the rope to the guardrails (all the cleats are gone, if you recall). I shook Plymouth awake and clicked and whistled for him to join us. It seemed important that everyone be present. Gideon dropped our best rations overboard, wiping fish remnants and coffee grounds off his hands onto his shirt and then removing the neon garment and placing it into the sea as well.

  We sat together at the bow of the Artemis, in the aching sunlight, waiting.

  May 21, 2077, Outer Space

  Lieutenant Colonel Parker Timothy Olstead

  He thinks this is what it might feel like to be out at sea. Vast. Surrounded by mysteries both above and below. Lonesome, but in a pleasant way—the kind of way that makes you a better man.

  This is also how he likes to describe his job, when he gives talks and lectures for students, aspiring scientists and astronauts alike: We’re the new Magellans, he says. We explore uncharted places. We go to the limits of the known world, then we go further. By limits, he means both physical distance, but also intellectual distance, and personal, psychological distance. Going to space is hard. It tests you in degrees you wouldn’t expect. Sometimes he explains this concept; sometimes he leaves it unsaid, hoping his young audiences can make the leap themselves.

  And here he is again, pressing those very limits. Particularly the personal ones.

  He’d launched with two Swedes and a dozen cephalopods from the base at Vidsel the morning before. He spent the days prior working with his soon-to-be shuttlemates, Annika and Edvard, as they prepared for their departure. One evening, in the name of collegial small talk, they told him their favorite part of any shuttle mission was the launch itself.

  “There’s this humming that happens within you,” Edvard said. “Like the sound of each one of your cells vibrating. When else will you ever have the chance to experience that? Never.”