The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today

The ocean didn't want me today.

I realized that whatever treasures were on the island we were heading towards wasn't worth dealing with everything on this ship, its creaks and and its broken handles. Doubloons, loving mermaids, tans that change the lightest skin to the most golden brown and the clearest swimming waters weren't worth the each wave's echoes, the lightning waking and rewaking us each night; they couldn't mend the ears forced to listen to the unpitched shanties, the woes of folks who had no love left to give, nothing real to hope for; they couldn't get the taste of moldy sandwiches from the mouth and the cob webs from the pillows and blankets. I decided it was time to end my journey. I could hardly even remember why I agreed to board this ship in the first place. Lord knows I was never forced to do my job on it. I jumped at the break of day, figuring it would end nearly silently, save for the sound of one small drop.

But the ocean didn't want me today.

My feet entered the ocean's water and then so too did my knees but the rest of my body never reached the wet blueness. You see, my suicide had been timed so imperfectly that I jumped in the water the moment a humpback whale was jumping out of the water. I landed exactly on that part that whales love to show off when they're letting the world know that they're mammals needing their portions of the air and ending up falling right back onto the deck. I was hung and put in the bottom of the ship the next day.