Places at the End of the World

Our journey is long and hard, and the weeks blur into months that slide past like the wind. Days pass with nothing but the rush of the eternal sea to accompany us, and the Crest crawls and crawls determinedly towards the distant horizon but it never gets any closer. We trade with other pirates out at sea in order to restock our water and rations. The crew wakes up every day and retreats down below by night, sore and aching and irritable. I spend many a night watch crouching near the stairs, listening to their groans and grumblings.

"This is gettin' to be too much…Just where is this wretched Port Santiago anyhows?"

"Dunno but I'm sure that it's far, far away. Otherwise we'd be there alreadys."

"Aye; talk about a bloody waste of time. God knows where this'll lead us; we'll probably sail too far and end up falling over the Edge."

"Don't be a fool, Holliman; the captain ain't nearly that much of a brainless git. He's a good man; he'd never let the Crest go down in such a way."

"Now I wouldn't be so sure of that; this is man that nearly got us all killed in Calico-his little son was the one who struck the blow that saved all of our hides. Heaven knows where Joseph's route be takin' us…"

"How dare ye say such a devilish thing!; why, insultin' the captain like that! He'd have your head if he were to hear ye blabberin' all of that awful nonsense!"

The talk turns into an all-out brawl, and I cannot listen anymore. I drift across the deck and gaze glassily over the boiling sea, the mist swirling all around me in the chilling night air. With trembling hands, I finger the black compass and pull it from my pocket, hunching my shoulders to hide it as I study it carefully, my eyes locked on the needle as it trembles back and forth, shivering and shaking as it were also frightened of the greedy clouds of mist, howling and reaching for me as they ride on the gusts of the icy trade wind. A heavy moment settles around me as the needle slows, ever so slowly crawling across the compass-face, yearning towards a single direction, where it finally comes to a shaking stop, still quivering and shuddering as it points out over the ragged ocean and far away through the mist. I look out to where it points, but I can see nothing. Nothing but the rolling masses of ocean fog against the blackness of the sky. Nothing at all. My mind reeling, I snap the black case shut and stare at the compass sitting in my scarred palm. To where is it pointing me? What does it yearn to show? I think of Smith, and remember how he spoke of the compass tiring of his 'trivial wants'. Does the compass do something that I want? I ponder on it for hours of every long day and weeks of every long month. Where is the needle pointing, and why? One thing I'm sure of; the compass does not point in the same direction we are headed. Wherever it is leading me, it must be somewhere even more distant than Port Santiago, some strange place at the end of the world, one place where I hope we don't end up. I spend empty hours lying in my cot, staring through the wavering lamplight at the black case clutched in my hand. What a useless, broken thing it is; I'm almost tempted to heave it over the railing and watch it sink down into the oblivion of the consuming blue depths, but something holds me back. I cannot leave it, and it never leaves my belt loop, tucked and hidden away under my shirt. It is all I have in these pointless days of nothingness.