Endless Voyage

I stopped believing in the world on a Tuesday.
That morning, I rose from my bunk, forgot to change and walked straight up and out to the bow of the ship without realising my revelation.
As I stirred the coffee I didn’t realised I’d made, I looked into the smooth recesses of a quiet ocean. For once-the coffee was the most stirred up.
After no clouds had moved, and no change was made, I felt satisfied and walked to greet with Havermayer; who within five minutes of being awake had smoked twice. Yesterday, he told me how much he hated smoking.
“Seen much land recently?” He said, pulling a stubby cigarette out comfortably from between grinding teeth.
“I wouldn’t know, I’m not the spotter.”
He offered me a cigarette from his pocket, knowing I wouldn’t accept.
“Who is the spotter?”
Another puff of white smoke charred the salt in the air.
“Chookes, I think.”
A stray rat scuttled past and Havermayer tried to kick it, but instead made it scuttle faster.
“Chookes is dead.”
Havermayer was more concerned about the rat, which had taken residence in a drainage pipe, his words billowed into thin air.
“Dead? What do you mean?” I said.
“Not alive.” Havermayer had started to reach for his pistol, but found it wasn’t there.
“I saw him yesterday, this morning, even. He was laying there, sound as you like, full of colour and breathing. I swear.”
Havermayer offered me another cigarette.
“Can you see him now?” Havermayer was looking for a weapon, and finding only his pockets.
“Well, no, but if I were to go down there I’d find him.”
I couldn’t see Havermayer’s face but I knew it lit up like a cruel doll.
“So, as far as your immediate knowledge is concerned, you don’t know how Chookes is?”
Havermayer had taken position on top of some rope, my eyes were stung by rising sunlight when I craned to see him.
“I suppose, but I have knowledge that’s more than immediate, I have logic and assumption and memory, I don’t think Chookes is dead.”
Havermayer began to pull the rope around his hands, tying it into grips.
“How can you assume?” He was a hawk. “You can’t assume, no, you’re limited by your perception and all you’re perceiving now is me and the rat. Chookes is dead.”
My coffee was stone cold, but I sipped it out of guilt and fear of the cook. It was too bitter, and I didn’t drink coffee.
“If we lived like that, we wouldn’t know anything. We’d live in boxes all by ourselves and the whole world would die every time we looked away. Can’t you have faith?”
Havermayer was smoking another cigarette, biting down with every breath, his muscles tensed-readying for his rodent prey.
“Faith? That’s hardly empirical, if you start believing in stuff you can’t see like fairies and genies, then surely you’re delusional. Chookes isn’t just dead, he doesn’t exist. Gone. Poof. Whammo.”
I saw who was delusional, everyone knew what delusion was, delusion was a man hunting rats and saying Chookes was dead. Normal was good, faithful, men who didn’t smoke and knew that everything existed.
“Havermayer, does land exist?”
Havermayer turned his head like a sentry, the rat scampered away.
“I wanted to find out, I can’t see any, I suppose not.”
“Does that mean the voyage is endless?”
Havermayer shrugged, the vast flat plains of icy blue water weighed down on his shoulders.
“You know I’m the ship psychiatrist, right?”
Havermayer looked me square in the eye, he seemed shocked to hear a voice.
“Doc? You came back to life! Geez, I was scared; how’d it feel, dying?”
I was quite aware that I was ship psychiatrist the entire time, yet, it had never occurred to me that delusions were within my domain. I always assumed the ship priest could pray the hell away.
“Havermayer, I didn’t die. No-one died.”
“I suppose you didn’t die to you, but you did to me, honestly Doc I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been having some issues sleeping recently, I was wondering if you could help.”
Havermayer was now a spider monkey. I was now a psychiatrist.
“I know what your deal is, you haven’t seen land in so long you don’t think it exists, perfectly normal but we’re gonna have to talk.”
Havermayer raised his head to the clouds and said.
“Your wife is dead, Doc. I’m sorry, but you don’t know how she is and as far as we know she’s dead.”
There were tears wetting Havermayer’s cheeks.
My jolt of fear was overrun by the time it had struck.
“I can send a message to her, if you like, telephone her. She’s quite alive.”
Havermayer looked at me with steely eyes, and leapt from the rope.
“No Doc. No, no, no. Are you talking to her now?”
I was the rat now.
“No, but that doesn’t mean she’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
He grinned.
Before my breath came back to me, Havermayer was gone, and I was angry because I wasn’t a psychiatrist anymore; I was just another Havermayer, and that made a pain in my chest, because Havermayer was dead.