Metaphorical

Prologue: Oh God… I literally puked in my first blog… yes that’s what it’s called when things come out of the mouth uncontrolled... be it food or as in this case… words. Oops… just did it again… Ok <in serious tone>… No more. The last blog kind of digressed from the theme…‘the standstill’ which I later realized what exactly it was… So…

He is at the final stage of the fight with his sleep. Eye lids tightening trying to push the light out, but he feels helpless to control the rising brightness. A distant sound of clap diligently knocking in the ears… it’s my Mom trying to wake me up for school. No… wait it’s not Mom… it’s… it’s… is it water?

Yes, it is water. The sleep breaks, he gains consciousness with the first morning yawn. It was the sound of sea water striking his white boat. He is a sailor. The buttons of his blue shirt are not matched with buttonholes, making one side overtaking the other. And the Pantaloons merely hanging on his chubby waist showing his ugly cleavage. As if he doesn’t care and why should he, there is no human to shame from… all he can see is the Endless-Dead-Sea all around.  The sails had surrendered long back over the mildness of the breeze. The only motion the boat doing is up and down, not even a slightest current to drift him ahead or back at the least.

He can feel his stomach growling, but he no longer does break-fasts ever since he began sailing. Or maybe he has grown accustomed to it. He knows there is no food on the boat. He moves towards a cracked icebox with a hope to find something. The box is half filled with water which was ice but melted hours or maybe days back. His hand takes a dive into the water in the icebox to get hold on something. He dubiously pulls out a brown bottle of beer whether to forget his lonesomeness or to merely fill his stomach.   

There is no fear in his eyes and neither are they looking delighted. He raises his beer bottle (in his mind) and says cheers to the many and the only friends around him… the birds, the fishes and some crabs on his boat. The ‘one time friends’ that one makes while travelling; who, perhaps would never be seen again at least in one lifetime. And he takes the first sip.

He is up to something as he shifts the bottle to his left hand. He moves swiftly with the right hand trying to lift his fishing rod and eyes slowly inspecting the hook. It has something attached which lures the fishes. He walks towards an opened side-wall of his boat and sits, keeping the bottle beside him on the floor as his partner. Legs hanging over the sea water, he swings his rod back and forth to project the hook at an optimum range. And now he takes a larger sip and sighs with a temporary relief.

But what now… now… now he waits & ponders… will he catch a fish today, will there be wind to sail him at least 100 yards, will he see any sign of land… and he ponders and ponders again… this moment… the very same moment is what exactly is…. ‘the standstill…’

PS: Do play with the fishes… the new gadget I added.