I’ve been needing to write, but not knowing how to start. So, I decided to steal Neil Gaiman’s “calendar of tales” prompts and see what i could do. I want to try and do this regularly and just get in the habit - I never write creatively, really, because I’m too nervous/afraid.But here! So… here’s to trying new things! 

(I used the March prompt for this first effort - not sure why it came out so melancholy…Maybe because it’s still February!)

“Anne Bonny and her rapscallion heart, dreaming for a ship of her very own.”

I woke up gently. It wasn’t abrupt, it wasn’t startling. I just eased into consciousness, with my mind remembering what it feels like to occupy a physical body. My right shoulder ached from sleeping on that side for too long. My eyes were dry – they never do get used to the winter – and my legs had that strange ache that comes from being unused for 8 hours. As I went about this tender accounting of my physical state, I was deliberately avoiding acknowledging the echoing cavern that my chest had become overnight.

I’d spent the night dreaming about the sea. I could still taste and smell the brine, and my face seemed like it should be a bit sticky from gusty salt-air that comes from riding straight into the wind at the head of a boat. I could almost convince myself that I was land-sick and nauseous – though how could I be? All I’d done was sleep for eight hours. I haven’t been to sea since I was a young girl. I shouldn’t be able to remember all these feelings any more. It’s been over ten years since I saw the ocean, and even then, that was only one time.

Every year, on the 18^th of March, it happens. I forget about it all year, while I live my normal land-life. Then I wake up on the 19^th feeling salty and sad. Every year it gets worse. At first, I just felt a bit nostalgic – I was 11 the first time it happened and I didn’t have the vocabulary for anything beyond “I miss the ocean, mom. Can we go back? It was so fun last year.” Every year since then, my vocabulary has grown and but so has the emotion. I can’t pin it down no matter how hard I try. It’s longing and misery, craving and ohgodwhycan’tIforgetthesea?

The slapping sound of the waves, the creaking of the wood, the smack of the ropes and the flap of the sails. The endless, echoing silence of the water. It’s so quiet that it forces you to know how loud it really is – just like looking at a night sky on a clear night makes you realize just how small you are. The feel of cotton, wool and leather on my skin; so different from the high tech blended fabrics I wear every day.

All night, I was there. All night I commanded my vessel. It was a journey of years in the space of a single dream. Every year, on the 18^th of March I traverse the waters of this planet, but I see things that are not real. Every year my ship is older, and more people I meet know my name – I’ve had love affairs on the 18^th of March that were more passionate, tempestuous, kind and joyous than I ever have had in my real life.

And yet, I wake up so gently. I wake up with an echo in my chest that grows larger with every passing year, rattling around and shaking the bars of its cage. I’m starting to get scared that if I give it another 14 years, the echo will take over, and I’ll be an empty shell, living on the memory of a salt-water dream.