Midrash of a Stowaway

The timber beast that holds me in her belly groans and shakes. Inside the surrounding planks that buttress her entrails, I feel her vast, curving, and flexing hull. I sense her tremble and bend and creak as the wild waters roll and crash against her flanks, as she stumbles into the deep, dark troughs and rides up to white-capped peaks.

It is dark—pitch black—in the cargo hold where I lie. But the furious waves churn in my mind’s eye as clear and imperious as daylight. I see the winds lash and whip together a mountain of viscous gray. I lie in the dark, clenching my eyes shut, but the swell churns toward me, glutting and swallowing—

The world shudders and rumbles with all of God’s wrath as heavy stormwater and foam strike against our thick beams.

I need to move then, to take my mind off the fury that drives against our prow, spraying itself into mist with each angry wave sent against me. My hands feel the strong, knotted wood and guide me to my feet. I grope and shuffle forward, eager to move, to change my place. 

No, the dark does not frighten me. It is the finest medium for my trade—a veil behind which I can travel undetected and penetrate the places of wealth where men believe their extravagant possessions are theirs to keep (a mistake I am happy to disabuse them of). It is not the warm gloom that bothers me but the angry abyss that churns and washes around the keel, sending furious rumblings through the vessel walls. I am too close to that force out there that roars: you mortal.

To higher decks I will go.

I stand and take two steps. A watery mass slams into port—I stumble and feel myself fall into a black chasm but manage to hook an arm around a square column. The nether hold is enormous and the pace of a blind man is agonizing… But I move my feet, my hands, and I stumble and grab through the dark, and catch myself, and wrap arms around coarse wood that scrapes my face but keeps me on my feet…

Panting, I begin to feel my way and learn my footing, learn to anticipate the swaying and wild careening, learn the posts and beams that help me stand. And I find that I can see. Starved eyes turn into the most sensitive instruments. The space around me glows faintly. The buried alive begins to see his sepulcher: wooden, rough, pitch-stained, utilitarian.

In this way I move and stay concealed, and lose track of time—how many days? Months? Eternal gloom.

A map graves in my mind. The hated lines of my prison glow red. I navigate by it, taking myself closer to the passengers. I creep behind walls, past yellow shafts of light cast by lamps on dark tables. Around them gather crew and captain. Their words strike my ears. 

“The stowaway…” They whisper stridently. And deliberate on what to do with the unwanted man. How to find me and throw me overboard.

But how wilt thou capture shadow? My teeth flash pallid in the gloom.

Mere arms lengths away from the hapless fools, I crawl on past the bread loaves that stand silently in stacks and find the stairs that lead me back down into the dark abode. Down to safety where I can sleep and hide inside the animal holds, down in the immense hull that is now my whole world.

I am resigned to this existence—better than the alternative of shore. Yes, we—crew, passengers, and stowaway—will not see those lands again ‘ere we die. I snort, dispelling the pang of longing that squeezes at my heart.

Staying hidden. Staying on the move. Avoiding the search parties sent down with knives that glint red in torchlight. Hiding among the creatures, inside their troughs, burying myself in fodder. I live like a rat.

And then, one day, while huddling between egg baskets and holding a plate of stale bread, an invisible power strikes me down. I roll over violently and send my meal cluttering along the floor. A low, violent crack and rumble like the felling of a cedar elder shakes the ground. The beasts in chambers below give voice to my alarm with a hellish chorus. I lie still and train keen ears to probe the decks above.

Something is different… A new draft in the air stirring through the vessel.

Muffled shouting… Running feet… Excitement in the air and a strange sensation under my back…

The boat no longer moves! After so many days spent at the mercy of the cruel waves, we rest in perfect and surreal stillness. The contrast is turbulent but I can think of only one thing: my escape! But have we truly found land or only some reef that will grip us in its teeth, trapped and surrounded by withering waves until our food is gone? Will we lie here taking on water at the mercy of the storms?

I must know!

Like so many times during the long voyage, I make my way via dark hallways and stairs, up closer to my fellow passengers, closer to mortal danger. I walk too fast, my feet keeping the rhythm of a heart that races with glee, and nearly fly around a corner into the source of two bated voices. But the keen wisdom of a vermin throws me against the wall before my reckless legs carry me to danger. 

I press myself against the tough timber and listen…

“They will not understand why we do not disembark,” speaks the old woman. “What will you tell them?”

“This is the way it must be done,” answers her husband. “It is no different now than when we started—”

“But why?”

“You would question the plan now—after everything?”

A crash from higher up interrupts the argument and the two go running (thankfully in the direction away from where I huddle). Everything inside of me screams to follow but I temper these emotions. I am at my greatest peril now. And so, resigned, I skulk back into the deep.

Time and the dark turn into agony. The boat sits unbelievably still. The frequent and excited thudding of feet on boards above mocks me in my prison. I glare up at the dark ceiling with murder in my heart.

Are we at solid shore? Why do they not disembark? Their odious presence keeps me bound inside their nocturnal boat. I grow to hate the gloomy beams and staves. I loathe the braying, squawking, roaring, neighing, bleating, barking, howling cargo. Their musky, filthy scents that always linger in the air…

I cannot tell you how many days pass like this but eventually I break. Something snaps inside of me. A creature like me is meant for greater exploits. With a roar, I run and throw myself onto the stairs.

I charge through doorways, past living spaces, beds, tables, chairs, up ladders, knock over looms, and kick at childrens’ toys. I do not stop to study the shafts of light descending from hatches in the ceiling. The space is too bright for eyes that have lapped at meager candlelight. I squint with fury and charge through them—trip, fall, get up, and throw myself onto a staircase that ascends into a brilliantly milk-white loft. 

With a wild tumble through the final doorway, I stop and freeze—where to go now? This place was never mapped. My eyes send pain in throbs but I am pleased. It is the air that thrills me—fresh and free of the foul stench of countless, confined beasts. A soft zephyr engulfs me and I grin, forgetting my pain.

But a most unpleasant sound floats inside the gust: the same drivel I heard all my days inside the wretched boat. The same tripe that spilled out of the mouths of my fellow-passengers—the abominable ones who plotted my capture. But it sounds different now. Not hushed and scheming. Not angry but delighted, awestruck… Gobsmacked.

The fools! Now is the time to trap me. Take advantage of the half-blind man and his sudden lack of composure. Do not marvel at your promised land and leave the stowaway to roam free with his guard down. The greatest vigilance is required when the long journey draws to its conclusion. The fools.

They have not seen me, but for how long? I must move.

I squint feebly at the ground. The boards look different up here. Not the dark, knotted timbers fitted for cargo and animals. This wood is bright, weathered, bleached, smooth… 

I creep along away from the repugnant voices. My eyes hurt and I squeeze them shut to rest them. And when they open again, I nearly tumble past the ropes that mark the edge. I grab the thick lines with both hands and—half-excited, half-frightened—stare down… And see a delightful blur of gray and green.

Fortune is on my side for in the precise place where I stand, wooden rungs of a bulky ladder trace the hull of our craft straight down to its keel. No time to think—I throw a leg over. The sudden drop and vast space beneath me is frightening, but I push the fear out of my mind. Clumsily and nearly losing my grip, I stumble down the rungs. My descent feels so rapid, nearly falling, but the journey takes so long—too long.

And then: a rough, unsteady, crumbly ground under one extended foot. And I let go of the ladder and stand among a mass of boulders piled against the barnacled hull of the loathsome boat. It is hard to accept that no one is pursuing or shouting after me. That I am free.

I instinctively trot in the direction where the rocky land begins to curve down. My eyes have recovered and although I dare not stop to take a vista, I can see that our harbor consists of gray cliffs and crags, mostly bare but lightly mottled with moss and lichen. The urge to put more distance between myself and the boat and crew persists inside my mind. I recklessly crawl down a draw filled with sharp scree as my heart leaps with joy—free and out of sight of the only ones who can stop me. 

I have done it. I have survived against the odds, employing my trade to stay concealed and to live. And now to soar down the mountain, free—

I feel sharp eyes dig into my back. My senses have grown keen inside the maritime monastery and so many days in hate and contemplation. There is a presence on my heels. Halting, I turn around.

My gaze meets the hoary, bearded face that I watched and avoided all those months. 

And the old captain of the boat recognizes me too.

Ah yes, you have sensed a stowaway among you and made attempts on his life. And now your black eyes, first narrow with anger as you see him escape, grow wide. And your face is ash because you recognize, with a chill, where you have seen me before.

When you sweated and broke your back and built your vessel, they all mocked you. You acted resilient—a man justified by providence—but their derisions left a wound, because you are not as strong as you supposed. You are no better than the rest of us vile worms and blasphemers: vain, proud, and insecure.

But in your isolation, as you bore the mocking gazes on your weary, laboring back, one man came and gave you praise. He acted as your heart secretly desired: he stood in awe of your achievement! And you allowed him to wander around your incomplete vessel. 

That is how I came to prowl among your cargo.

But now, while standing on scabrous rocks, your frightened visage recognizes the grave mistake. You have failed this new world. Aboard your ship you carried a dark presence to a purged, immaculate, and virgin place. Enjoy its beauty yet unspoiled—the spec of mold you failed to throw out will one day, in crooked generations yet to come, bring rot.

I grin with satisfaction and vanish down the mountain to an earth that is mine to plunder.

With great glee, I can still remember how that bearded man stood there in front of me, sunken in a grim realization. His grand boat lay behind him, caught in the crags of an immense mountain, its massive doors of gopherwood thrust open, heaving out a torrent of every imaginable creature. Out onto a planet cleansed of men and beasts they streamed—every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth…