Choose from the Seven Basic Plots and write a story. Grab a few friends and take turns writing a sentence after each other. Where will this voyage lead?
The Voyage and Return: Shades of the Seven Seas
By Rohan, Miguel, David, Jessica, Jennifer
In the land where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea. What was he looking for there? Gripping the wooden oars tightly, he spat into the water. That was his daughter’s last memory of him, which she thought of as she went on her journey for new medical discoveries after his death from scurvy. She remembered the coarseness of his face–never smooth, not even after shaving with his dull blade– his hands calloused and tough from rope burns and fish gutting, the smell of his cologne and the final sounds he made as his lungs finally gave out. She confided this to me, as I gently wrapped my hands around her neck and rocked my body into hers on the floor of our little rowboat. How long have we been out to sea? How did we get here? How did I find myself here, beside you, riding the curve of your back to the rhythm of the waves? Where are we going? I ask again. What was he looking for there? She told me that I looked like her father, the same nose, the same eyes, the same mouth…but my hands did not have the familiar touch. As I pondered on that notion, my weary eyes grew hazy. My sight was fading, and I saw flashes of light at every corner. Something was happening, but I didn’t notice. Not until I could feel something warm dripping down my chest did I notice something sticking out. A slab of silver cut into me. As I was just realizing my impalement, she slowly moved toward my ear, with her lips on my lobe. She whispered, “I have found ways to survive with nothing on me for a long time”. I wanted to let loose a corrosive laugh, one that would melt me from the inside out. How the tables have turned! But all I could afford was a wheeze. “Would you do me the honors?” It was a shallow wound, but even I know when I’ve lost.
You remind me of my father. I ask again, but I have no answer. The same questions swirl over and over, the sound of the sea swallowing them too, and I see you, mother–you stand before me too, my father’s knife in your upturned hand. Do you offer it to me, mother? I understood your sentiments at that time but what of it now? Have things not changed the way they should have? I am pondering on these things and yet I didn’t know if I had a care for what was happening. As I found myself trapped in the physical realm, I saw her face. It was smiling — malice. Or was it something else? Now, my laugh returns to me, speckled with blood as I pepper the face of that doll-like creature above me. She is smiling too, with that same something else. No more human than I am I suppose. I beckon with my hand, with a grand flourish, with a nobility, with a resignation, with a suffering, with a joyous joy – I beckon: won’t you wrap those hands around my neck, my love?
Mother, mother. I will get to the heart of you. I will slice through until I find your core, mother, father, love of my life. If I slice my own throat, will I slice you, too? Will I find the bones you said we share? You told me once, mother, when I was born, you hid a wish inside my stomach. The sea tells the same story. There is something here–here, swelling underneath the flesh in my belly, an onyx stone, a charm you kissed once before slipping inside. I will turn myself inside out to find it.
Mother, mother. I am so close; so close to finding what it is you’ve left me. This treasure of yours that’s been inherited by me, but have yet to truly yearn for. WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT THAT YOU’RE TELLING ME? WHAT DID YOU GIVE AND WHAT DID YOU WANT ME TO RECEIVE? WHAT IS IT. WHAT IS IT. What is it…
She looked at me, an expression I’ve never seen before. You are so much like your father. Yes, as are you. Hands slip and lace at the back, and that empty grin still reigns above. I am here, father, as I always have been. I shall join you soon. Or, maybe I’ve always been there. For, mother said, we’ve always shared the same bones. Same flesh. Same blood. The same wish, now separated from the skin, now extracted, now floating out to sea. I will follow.
The Exhibit Unbound 