Marco struggles to come to terms with his transition from first mate to captain.
The captain's bed, like the man himself, is gone. This is my bed, which is not the captain's bed, but which must be now, at least in name.
It's newer and emptier and so, so, so much smaller.
I've never been in it before, which is also different from the captain's bed. Here, I lay on my back and reach my arms up where my fingers touch headboard and out where I can run my palms along the bed's edge or stretch my legs to rest my heels against the footboard. In my head, over and over, I know it's me, I know it's me now and I hover above the mattress, trying to feel the ground again.
I used to sleep deep in the captain's bed, wrapped in the sheeted surface, held up and held safe. And I could feel a heartbeat through the frame that pulsed into the floors and traveled to every bed and across the waves into hearts just like mine. One heart, true, but I don't feel it here, in this place, in this bed.
In the captain's bed there was a man and it didn't always have to be me. Finding myself was easy, grounded by a hand and a fingertip on my lips.
It was so, so, so much bigger, but I was cupped in the batting and blankets and rocked in the heartbeat of a single man with a single heart that was still bigger than his arms could spread or his feet could reach.
I am a man, and I am the captain, and I'm in a bed, and my heart is beating, but I cannot find myself here, in this so, so, so small place.
I can find the headboard and the edges and the footboard and a tight pulse and it seems like I should be somewhere in between. So I wonder if the captain's bed is where I am, safely sheltered in the sea of sheets that smelled warm even after they should have started smelling sterile. But the captain's bed, like the man himself, is gone. Which must mean I may be too. Except that I'm here in this, my bed, where it is hard to find myself but where I can feel my way into being.
I am not ready to be a man, so I turn to my side, as if this was the captain's bed, and pretend this place is bigger by making myself smaller. I remember the scent of worn warmth and hold myself safe.
In this place, I fall asleep in the captain's bed and think about his heart beating. Mine can never be that big.