She touched him-
Spindly blue fingers creeping across his sleeve like an eight legged creature stalking prey. Frost and ice leaving foot prints in the wrinkles. The chill raising the flesh all over in small prickles of fear, like each cell could sense the danger. Though he knew she was there, there in the room, he couldn’t brush off the sleep that held him. How, she was so far away; she is so close. To close.
Struggling against the thickness of her web he got one arm free. It was that moment that he awoke- mainly from the pain. In his bunk, fear pressed all around like a stifling blanket, and scratchy, he darted his eyes from corner to corner. He knew she was there. Her blue hair would give her away, just webs of spiders long since deserted. In his mind, through fissures, she had laid her eggs. Hatching and creeping around in his head, little bits and pieces and fragments of what he had, what could have been.
What could have been, thank God
He hadn’t slept in nearly two months besides the dreams… cold dreams offering no comfort. Only the smoke gave him ten minutes of peace, but sometimes she was there too. There in the smoke watching him. Like this time now.
He had moved out of his quarters and back to the bow. Clutching his wool coat to his gray skin he scanned the still waters. Always dark, they seemed to ask for a kiss. Many great men had been seduced by those lips. Many great men… Dragging out the sweet tobacco he had lit in his pipe, he let it mingle with his senses and slowly out. Up and away it went, curling like the waves over a reef. He could see that evil siren, with hair the colour of turquoise islanders always had for trade. He could hear her song. In his bed he had felt her icy touch, it was still there on his shoulder. His hand had been there ever since offering comfort to the icy wound- a very insecure picture he mussed aloud.
“At least there was still some life inside this bag of flesh,” turning his back to the sea, and to his mistress. “I can still feel, and there’s still the sea.”
Half joking he thought to himself, “there’s plenty of fish in the sea.”
That was one thing he hated about himself. She had created death within him. Down to the very core was a void that filled now and again with cynicism. Like a cyclone it would cause havoc and floods and then disappear. It was a struggle like that, against Mother Nature herself, that he was no match for. He was just one man. Of course there was other things, drinking, smoking, isolation. But those where temporal and materialistic. She had torn his very soul. Her jagged blade hacking and tearing.
Noise had begun above. The night watch had retired and the crew was busy with morning chores. Not that he had planned on sleeping anyways. Knocking his pipe clear on the railing overlooking the last trails of her hair he headed to his quarters to change. They would no doubt be looking to see if he had awoke from this night or been claimed by his blue fish lady as they called her.
He never heard the end of it. Always. They didn’t ever question his tales- they could see what she did to him. His skin was pulled tight across his face. Dark sullen eyes peered out like little fish staring out a hole fearing the shark, always darting. He wore his cap high on his head keeping his long hair of his face. The curls were always seeking the shelter of his brow. Across his face lay an unsightly beard. Patchy and gnarled, looking like an overgrown tangle of weeds. He was not put together as he would like. It was known he didn’t sleep. Whispers could be heard over the rations of rum, he was one of the tales they told. Being already dead, naturally he didn’t fear much, except for her. His ship sailed the waters no other would. His polished boots had been where no others had. Even to Death’s door for a cup of tea and a biscuit. That gave a smile to his lined face. He liked the stories and even on occasion, when the rum was really good, told a few of his own. No one slept those nights.
