The captain stood fast against the storm. The ship rocked under his feet. His loyal crew scurried about below him on the deck. He looked towards the horizon. The clouds stretched into the darkness. A particularly strong gust of wind caught the mizzen mast. It rocked and fell slowly, coming to rest on the captain’s head.

                I awoke with the sun beaming down on my face. I squinted in an effort to see beyond the white of the light which was in my eyes. I blinked away the grogginess and stretched as I began to wake up fully. My senses fully returned and I felt, below my leather jacket, the wet wood of the deck. I heard the splashing of waves against the side of the ship. A creak sounded below me as something moved in the bowels of the vessel. I sat up slowly and looked around. The deck was clean of the crew. So was the poop deck. The wheel stood abandoned near the stern although it turned ominously alone in the wind. I turned around to look to the bow. I had fallen just aft of the mainmast and now, I was at eye height with the coat of arms of the captain’s family, which he had, himself set into the mainmast. I remembered that ceremony well. I had been dressed in a fine dress and as the only woman aboard, all the men were doing generally creepy things. They knew that I had a boyfriend in one of the ports on our route. A couple of guys kept glancing at my chest, which seriously weirded me out. I recalled being forced to wear a dress to the event, much to my displeasure. I hated those things. The coat of arms itself is elegant and complex. A large shield with a symmetrical pointed top and a symmetrical straight bottom is supported by a rhino on either side. All of which rests on a mound of ores. A grand crown, or coronet, rests atop the shield, it's a crown of raised leaves and a modest amount of similar gems decorate the outer sides.

                I stood up, finally having shaken the drowsiness from my eyes, and looked around. On all sides, the ship was surrounded by endless ocean, which looked unchanged since before the storm. Of the four ship’s boats, all were missing except one. I cautiously explored every nook and cranny of the ship in search of someone who would be willing to assist me. There was not a living soul aboard. The only signs that anyone else had been aboard the ship appeared deep in the bowels where several poor souls had been killed by a falling piece of wood from above.

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                I went over the ship again, this time searching, instead of for people, for leaks in the hull of the ship. It seemed structurally sound, but ships weren’t totally waterproof. The vessel, I concluded, would sink in about two days.

                I returned to the upper deck. Being alone aboard a ship meant for seventy was sapping my strength. I sat, with my feet hanging over the side, almost brushed by the waves, staring at the horizon. It suddenly occurred to me that not all was as it seemed. My floating home, the ship upon which I now stood, had been sailing with two others. Where were they? I walked slowly around the railing of the ship, looking off toward the horizon in every direction. They were nowhere. Disappointed, I returned to my thinking spot. I looked out at the sinking sun, ironic since I was nearly stranded on a very similarly sinking object, not quite slipping below the water of the endless ocean yet but knowing that it was inevitable. I turned my back on it, my determination to survive the sinking of my ship finally rising again from the depths of endless despair. I gathered my few belongings in a suitcase of the captain’s.

                The dress, which I was stuck with, my three pairs of pants and four shirts, all of the frilly sleeve variety. One of the men probably would have made a snide comment about my wardrobe but he would have found himself shortly in the water. I made my way hastily to the captain’s cabin and took as much gold as I could fit into the bag. After all, if I made my way to land, I would need some way to pay for passage back home. I placed my bag, next to the map, which I had taken, on the deck and went back to my little storage area, where I took my only piece of jewelry, a simple silver necklace with a single stone of jade set in it, and put it on.

                That necklace was the most important thing that I carried at that time. It had been given to me by the mayor of my village when I decided to go off to sea. “This is a lucky charm,” the mayor had said, “and you will have want of it on your voyages.”

                I returned to the upper deck and let the last boat down into the water. I took my bag, the map, and a deep breath as I stepped aboard the minuscule work of wood which was all that was between me and the deep blue sea. I took the oars and set off toward the horizon.