Pearls of Wisdom

The MV Iron Horizon groaned as all 290 meters of the massive post-Panamax cargo ship pitched over another wave like a toy in a bathtub. As it slid down the other side of the mountain of water, Samir Bashir vomited over the railing. Gasping for air, his knuckles tightened around the slick metal, and his knees shook violently. I’m going to die. This is it. He wanted to weep at the realization, but the salty wind tore at his face, and terror stifled the sobs in his throat. Why did they send me here? Why did I think I could do this?

Lightning illuminated the dark scene before him, but instead of looking at the expanse of black, raging water, Samir shut his eyes tightly. He couldn’t bear to look. In his head, he could see the dark waves rising above the edges of the ship as if reaching up to catch the sky—black clouds meeting black waves in a violent collision. Everything was salty and wet and cold. On all sides he could feel the wrath of the ocean. He thought—only for a moment that he heard his grandmother’s voice echoing through the storm. “Never trust the sea, habibi. Our blood owes it something.” She had been an eccentric woman who was overly suspicious of everything, but particularly the sea. His mother told him it was some innate childhood fear she had tried to pass along to her and even push onto Samir. .Samir loved her, but as a teen, he grew embarrassed. He believed the adults when they said she was “losing it.” When she died, there was a strange sense of relief. With his eyes closed in on the edge of what felt like certain death, Samir realized there was indeed a reason to fear the ocean. Something tried to push its way to the front of his head and he grasped at it. Something about wealth.... As his head spun and stomach heaved, a hand clapped his shoulder.

Spinning around, Samir came face to face with the unmistakably muscled silhouette of Jack Tagata. The hulking man was smiling. Fucking smiling? In this weather?

“Easy there, bro. It's a bit of a rough one tonight, ya?” Jack secured his grip on Samir’s shoulder and steadied him so that he was standing straight—although the rocking of the ship made that nearly impossible.

“Oh shit, bro, you’re green. That’s no good, eh? Let me get you to Elias, he'll fix you up.”

Samir muttered a small but sincere thank you as Jack wrapped his beefy hand around Samir’s forearm and began leading him along the bridge. The bridge sat eight stories above deck level and normally offered panoramic views of the ocean and the thousands of cargo containers lining the deck in an orderly manner. Tonight, however, it was a cold lookout over a swirling mass of black.

Samir remembered when he had first stepped foot on the floating monstrosity. The magazine had promised him that if he wrote this story about life on a cargo ship, they would let him write a short piece of his choosing. After a quick Google of the ship, Samir had agreed, eager to publish one of his own opinion pieces. It was only after arriving at the loading dock in Russia that he realized he had Googled the Silver Horizon and been shown a series of beautiful concept art photos of a vessel that had yet to exist.

From the minute Samir had stepped foot on this godforsaken ship, he had hated it. This isn’t what I signed up for, he had thought, but unfortunately, it was. Everything was metal, bleak, and biting. He missed rounded edges, comfortable furniture, and stable footing.

They were only three days into their journey from Murmansk in the Arctic Circle to Punta Arenas, Chile—one of the southernmost cities in the world. That had been part of the appeal for the magazine. “How about, ‘Crossing the World’s Spine: From Arctic to Andes,’ I like the sound of that,” his editor had said.

And now here he was—being dragged along the tilting, creaking bridge by a man twice his size.

Without warning, the bow of the ship dipped violently and Samir lost his footing. His hand ripped off the railing and his head slammed against the floor with a crack. Sliding down the bridge on his back, Samir smashed into a rusted bulkhead with enough force to knock the air from his lungs. For a moment, all he could hear was the ringing in his ears and the groan of the ship's hull as it fought the sea. Dim red emergency lights cast a blood-colored haze over the metal around him, flickering in and out with each jolt of the vessel. He tried to sit up, but pain exploded in his skull and a warm trickle slid down the side of his face.

“Jack?” Samir croaked, his voice barely audible over the blaring alarms.

The pain in Samir’s head dulled, not from healing, but from something colder taking its place—a creeping, ancient dread blooming in his chest. The wind screamed louder. The waves rose higher. The ship pitched violently, groaning as if the ocean itself had turned against it.

Maybe it has.

And in that chaos, as alarms wailed and metal screamed, a memory slipped through the fog in his mind—soft and cracked like old vinyl.

A bedtime story.

“Once upon a time,” his grandmother had whispered, brushing back his hair with hands that smelled of rosewater and salt, “there was a man who made a deal with the sea. All his life, he dove for pearls, working hard to feed his wife. Then one day, they had a child. And suddenly, the sea gave him nothing.

He begged for more—more pearls, more wealth. He prayed each day to the waves, until one day… something answered. What it was, we do not know, habibi. Its name is older than the world itself.

The sea offered him fortune. But the price was this: it would take a child. One child, born of his blood. Not now. Not soon. Just… one day.

The man agreed, though fear gripped his heart. And he lived a long, rich life. So did his children. So did their children. But the story, like all things, was forgotten.”

She leaned closer then, her voice trembling with warning.

“Only I remember now, habibi. Your teta. We live far from the ocean, yes—but it doesn’t matter. It never mattered. The sea remembers. Do you hear me? Stay away from the water. Promise me.”

Samir laughed. He shook his head and laughed and thunder boomed and blood and brine soaked his brow. The storm swallowed his laughter. Samir whooped and hollered and when he realized he was too shaky, too weak to move, he began to cry with laughter. Fuck me, of course this is how I go. Lost at sea. Drowned on a ship. Arctic to Andes my ass we’re not even in international waters yet.

Then the alarms stopped.

A sudden, unnatural stillness fell across the bridge. The sea had gone flat. The waves, so violent just moments ago, now stretched smooth as oil in every direction. It was as if the ocean was holding its breath. The red emergency lights were gone but the moon now illuminated the ship like a spotlight.

Samir’s chuckles stopped. He sat up, confused by the peace, but not upset. After a minute in the unusual silence, his ears picked up on the splashing sounds. Samir, ever so slowly, turned and gripped the railing behind him. Ever so slowly, he pulled himself up and put his weight against the railing. He hobbled his way over to where the splashing was coming from and, ever so slowly, looked over the edge and into the inky blackness.

Beneath the surface, they were gathering.

Six weeks later, the Iron Horizon washed into port in Chile—silent, empty, and adrift under a cloudless sky.

The Chilean coast guard boarded cautiously. No crew. No cargo. No signs of violence. Just the vast hollow belly of the ship groaning quietly as it rocked in the gentle harbor current and a word scratched into the cement floor of the bridge.

“PAID”