The Boat Trip

The boat skimmed the jade river as it past by the brown-red hazy web of tree branches in an autumn forest. I ran my hand across that jade river; it was icy as the grave, cool and dominating. I looked back up at my Olivet against the pink and white-striped sail. She smiled at me, her hand keeping her large white headscarf in place over her luminous hair.

“Well,” I said to her, “What a day, what a day! The water is a touch too cold for swimming, but hopefully the current will be kind and we’ll be in Brasel by lunchtime for the picnic.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too concerned about time,” said Olivet, “Let us enjoy the fair autumn breezes and the morning before the morning is gone.”

I smiled back at her. “What a remarkable attitude to have!”

As we floated along, a flock of white birds flew overhead. Our pace seemed to be very quick, and I began to wonder if perhaps we should arrive at Brasel a dash and another dash too early. I put the sail down a little, but then we actually started to move on evermore quickly.

“Well, Olivet,” I said, “It would seem that instead of being too late, we shall be far too early.”

“Well,” said my Olivet, “Then we should enjoy the journey, for the journey will be too soon gone.”

“My dearest Olivet! What a remarkable attitude to have!”

A heron cried and a flock of starlings alighted upon a field; they were now past the forest; on either side of them was field upon field of green. I looked upon these fields and squinted.

“I cannot recall the fields here being so green, Olivet. No, never so green, and the gently rolling hills are rolling all wrong. They do not look the same hills.”

Olivet upon this point was silent. I looked at my watch.

“My word, Olivet! My watch seems to have stopped working!”

Upon this word Olivet looked away. The wind became chill, the light bright yet bleak, and a blackbird sang. I began to be somewhat concerned. Everything about this boat trip was becoming very strange, and Olivet did not seem to be wholely ignorant about that strangeness.

“Now, Olivet, come, come! You are not so innocent as you wish to appear with your quick words and remarkable attitudes. Be frank, Olivet, and tell me what is up with this most unusual boat trip.”

At this Olivet began to cry. “It is no good, no good, no good! I cannot tell you; you would be so embarrassed!”

“Now, Olivet, dearest, I sincerely doubt that is an issue at the present moment.”

“You were always an awful sea captain.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If only I had told you to take me to Brasel by train or Paris by plane or anywhere by other transportation we might have been saved!”

“Saved, Olivet? What is this?”

“Can you not tell? Do you not see what is all around, the migration of the white birds, the cry of the heron, the gathering up of the starlings, and the song of the blackbirds? Do you not feel the coldness of the wind and of the water? Do you not know the bleak brightness of the sun upon strange green pastural hillocks or the meaning of the brown-red haze of the autumnal wood?”

“No, Olivet, I see but I do not see; I feel but I do not feel; I know but I do not know. Tell me the reason for these things.”

“We have drowned, my love!”

“Drowned, Olivet?”

“You were always a terrible boatsman; we never stood a chance. We set out from the dock and, when the breeze tickled the tiniest of waves, we capsized and perished. We awoke dead, but you didn’t notice (you notice surprisingly little). I could not bear to tell you; you looked so proud of yourself, just like a real sailor! I thought, no harm done, and it would embarrass him so to know that he had drowned us, and who knows where the river is taking us? Perhaps we shall be revived being dead, but death is as uncertain as her counterpart, it would seem. O dearest, can you ever forgive me for not telling you we were dead?”

I grew very pale and icy. Drowned? I thought to myself, How drowned? This is quite astonishing! I could not have done as bad as all that, to capsize upon the launch.

“Olivet,” I said, “Tell me…I was brave during the thrashing about at the end?”

“Nay, my heart, if you were then you did not care to show it, which perhaps is the bravest thing of all, to not lead on that one is being so brave.”

“What a remarkable attitude to have, dearest Olivet. Tell me, darling, how was it when I tried to save you?”

“O love! You didn’t try to save me; you could not even save yourself. You dashed your head upon the keel and, with that, the final peel of youth death-knell was rung, but, yes, perhaps you tried to save me, but, being brave when you realised you could not save either of us, chose not to show how brave you really were in trying to save me, preserving your eternal modesty unto the very end, the bitter end. O my love and hero!”

“Nay, nay, Olivet, I am but a drownèd seaman who, gone down with his ship, went down with the first mate also and the long future afforded by a youthful age.”

“O yes, I am afraid I cannot lie anymore to keep you from embarrassment. In life you were incompetent at most everything. Perhaps, in death, you will be so much more the man than any man could be if he were still living.”

“Who knows what lies ahead for us in the second life, or second dying. Look, we approach a land of snow and wild heath ponies braying smoke. Familiar in life I was no good for anything, how much more a stranger in death?”

Olivet began to weep once again. I hung my head down and listened to the caw of an insidious raven.