You get on the ship to go out into the sea. The ship is at the dock and you're getting on with all the others. Everyone is dressed as if they are going to get wet. It's cold. The air that you breathe is so crisp and nice as it goes through your nostrils into the lungs and then you exhale and you can see your breath take off and fly away and disappear into thin air. Everyone is going out into the sea to look for something you are not sure even exists but you know that this is where you want to go. This is what you want to do. The captain asks if everyone is aboard and you're packed to the brim on this little ship. So many mixed feelings you have about going out into the middle of nowhere with all of these people around you and no chance of escape once you get out there. No one knows anyone on this ship. You look around you and there are all these faces you have never seen before. All these feelings arise even more of helplessness. The ship sets its course and heads out of the mainland. You look at the land and watch it slowly disappear behind you.
The more you move outside of the familiar terrain the more terror you start to feel inside of you. Who are all of these people around me? Why did I get on this ship? What exactly am I looking for? Are all of these people on this ship with me looking for the same thing? We move further and further out to sea. There's nothing out here. Open sky and a vast flat landscape of blue ocean on all sides. The people start to gather in small groups and discuss things like politics, religious beliefs, scientific discoveries, tragedies, triumphs, climbing mountains and then falling down them. They ask silly questions about the existence of non-existence and why does rain feel wet and other such nonsensical ideas about ideas.
This is the usual conversations in my dreams. In my dreams on the open sea on this ship with all of these people they show me newspaper headlines of buildings collapsing, people screaming, obituaries. The people start talking louder and louder and louder. So loud that eventually no one hears anyone. So loud that you can't even call it loud anymore because it becomes one giant frequency of sound. The captain points off into the distance and I look and see a storm brewing. Lightning. Big waves. Pouring rain. We all start panicking seeing all of this right ahead of us. What do we do? There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to do.
The ship starts getting tossed around by the big hungry sea. We all start huddling together. Waves crash onto the boat. We start slipping. The rain pours harder and harder. It tears us down. The sky turns grey and gray and grey. The waves start to overpower us. They start crashing onto the floorboards of the ship. The captain becomes mad with some odd delight in this maneuvering the collapsing sea. He smokes a pipe as he becomes more un-satiated.
More he screams. More! MORE!!! His eyes turn red. People are screaming. They all try to run but there is nowhere to go. Everyone is piled up on everyone. The waves are pounding people off of the ship. People jump ship. Woman and children scream for each other. They hold each other. Man jumps overboard. Another woman overboard. Another man. No one is talking anymore. No one has anything to say. Its happening. They know it's happening now. Everything they ever talked about. Everything they ever wished for. Every aspect of an aspect of an aspect. Every devilish grin. Every invitation for disaster. Every thought about the end of everything. Every creative thought and feeling about the destruction of creation.
The sea is taking its victims. It swallows them whole without a second thought. It doesn't have time to think. This is nature. This is natural. I stand there in the center of the ship and watch this all happen. The ship is getting tossed around. Everyone gets thrown overboard over a period of time. The rain slowly stops. The waves slowly disappear and its just the captain and I now. The infinite sea all around us and we are all alone. The sea swallowed everyone. We drift on as the sun slowly sets over the horizon. The captain comes down from the ships helm. We talk for awhile while he smokes a pipe. We go down into the ships belly and make some food.
Everything is now calm and clear. We hear a loud crash and head back outside for a moment. We crash into an island.
There is a man standing in the distance with a light in his hand.
