The History of Writing (VI.)

He could smell gasoline. He could taste oil. Conscious, not paralyzed, but unable to sit up from where he lay in the swaying floor. 

There were voices. He sensed, perhaps, a half dozen men about either side of him, standing with the assurance one learns to generate after successfully attempting anything as strange as sleeping and waking and living on water for weeks at a stretch. Men who regarded the stranger laying in the floor of their ship with curiosity that was only mildly disconcerting. 

One of them on his left side, near Sisyphus's shoulder, crouched at his knees to closer study Sisyphus. He said, only somewhat like a question, "Can you hear me in there, friend-o?" 

The unfamiliar accent momentarily terrified him: In his storied returns to and residences in the Tangential Plane, the hero of heroes perused, at length, the myths, scriptures, gospels, allegories and poems detailing the morality and anatomy of human creatures to such inextricable depth, the voice speaking to him was far more likely a viking rapist or some kind of chicken-stealing pirate than a trout & shrimp fischermann, which is what the stranger was. 

"Give him a nudge," said one of the others. 

"No, no," said a goliath-sized figure Sisyphus couldn't place. "He might have broken bones." 

"Or internal injuries!" 

"Shut your piehole, Wendell." 

"Oh please. Like any you punks was a doctor 'fore 'ee learnt t' bait hooks for a livin'." 

"Broken bones," the man repeated. "I mean it. You're supposed to let 'em move on their own." 

He turned in his wet clothes on the wooden floor, tired, discomfort and pain entering with his estimation of them. Brief temptation to suicide. This body was not like the others. He weighed at least ten more pounds, could see it in his heart and his guts. 

"Whoa." 

"Whoa." 

"He's movin'." 

"He's movin'."

Sisyphus got to his palms and knees and he pressed his hard hands to the hard floor and pushed himself to where he stood in the crowd of men who all fell one or two steps backwards to behold this extraordinary figure in a robe any of them had only ever seen in history books (and drawn or painted at that). The sight of the ancient man froze their words at once. 

He scanned among them, and among himself, for the question to ask and who to ask it. He was quite nauseas as a result of never having been on a sea-vessel before -- and twice as certainly not one with an engine as this had -- but the word 'Atlantic' came to mind and he said it. "Atlantic." 

"The crowd of them were perplexed. Some bent arms to scratch the backs of their necks. One or two inserted thumbs into the frontpockets of his pants. At least one massaged the chain-portion of a necklace. 

"Yeah, that's right, buddy," one of them finally said to their collective relief. You're on the Atlantic Ocean. You know where that is?"

The question was musical to Sisyphus. "The Atlantic Ocean." There was majesty in his treatment of the title. As though every thought he'd ever held were preserved in there and no event -- even crashing to the waves that divorced him from his consciousness -- could undo what fate & experience had bestowed. 

"I think we need to get this guy's head checked," said a man yellow-white iridescent eyes. 

"I'm with you there, Troy," replied a man with bluish-white iridescent eyes. "Except for who t'ink is gonna know what to make of 'is crazy get-up when they see that robe with that voice?"

"WE SHOULDN'T'VE PICKED HIM UP IN THE FIRST PLACE! SHOOT THIS FREAK IN THE HEAD AN' T'ROW HIM O'ER THE BOW: We get enough grief from Custom's as is without this nonsense." 

"Stuff it, Pete." 

"Ehh...." 

"Look," said the most merciful soul in that crew. "It's my boat we're talking about here, so it's my responsibility, so it's my -- I can say that, right? It's my choice." He had their attention. "We're bringing him in. Like it or not." Sisyphus didn't object. "And really, gentlemen: I'm gonna ask you all of once to think about this. We found him in the water, and that's it. We'll get him cleaned up and let New York State worry about the rest." 

This seemed to assure them, or bring them as much assurance as could be had without a shot of morphine in the buttocks. 

"Alright then. McGuinness: Get someone on the radio and see where we can port ourselves. Everyone else: Make yourselves useful or get out of the way. I'm gonna try to get acquainted with our new passenger." 

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