Salt

The salty spray hung in the air. It jumped off every surface. It grew in the cracks between the wood. It molded itself to the sealing tar.

Slick white salt.

It coated his tongue. It burned his nose. It burned his eyes. It settled on him and in him and then he was nothing more but a pillar of salt. Walls of salt. A floor of salt. Salt. Salt.

Then was the water. Some time like noon the tide would wash away the salty floor. It turned his feet to ragged prunes and coated the ground like a thin translucent film. He’d watch it recede and leave its friend behind. The salt. Watched it dry in the dips in the wooden boards. Always the salt.

The wood rotted with every cycle of the tide. Filled up with foamy white and grew little white crystals. Little gems. Diamond encrusted lumber. Pieces of the ship melted away, and he paced about the deck.

The ship was pierced. Held at the tip of a black rock just beneath the waves. Skewered like a piece of meat at the end of a spit. Enjoy the meal. The salt obliged.

There was no land in any direction. There were no islands. There were no mountains. There were no hills. There were no ships. There were no people. There was nothing but salt, and the water that carried it.

He paced. He paced, and ran, and tiptoed, and walked, in laps, and figure eights, and circles, and loops, and lines, until there was not an inch of the remaining deck on which he had not stood and cursed, and prayed, and begged, and cried, and walked, and walked, and walked.

Oh, how he wished for rain. The marooning storm, in all its generosity, had left him with just enough to get by. A third of a barrel. It was near empty now.

It stood on a throne of rubble and wood. High enough so the tide couldn’t reach. Hidden from the sun by a ripped and ragged section of the sail. It was draped over the barrel like a ceremonial cloak. Wood and wreckage lay on top of the fabric, a vain attempt to stop the sun from stealing what was left.

Any drinks were taken in the shade. He’d move the rubble and place the sail over his head, before reaching into the barrel.

He drank.

It passed through his cracked and salted lips.

He swallowed.

It tasted of wood and dirt and blood.

He drank.

He paced.

8 days since the storm. 7 nights since the storm.

Now, on the ninth night, his tongue felt like leather. His steps slowed and the circles he paced grew smaller and smaller until he was spinning in place.