A Journey of Words

The Whaler’s Dues-4

“He was angry,” she mumbled quietly. “He found out I fell in love with someone else.”

“Who was angry? Is that who did this to you? Who touched you?”

She turned and looked straight into his eyes, her hair whipping into her mouth. “Biggles.”

Small red dots of anger pinpricked his vision. “That bastard. I’m gonna get you out of here, but we gotta get the boat back into the water. I’m not quite sure what happened here; it’s just another notch in the list of crazy things—”

“I’ll help you get the boat into the water.”

The teenage girl followed Big Riff to the whaleboat. Just as rapidly as the tide had receded, the water rushed toward the shore, flooding underneath the Rosa Lynn’s hull. Within moments, she was upright and buoyant again, rocking back and forth with the current. The crisp water surged around their legs as it headed for the beach.

“You did this. I don’t know how, but I’m pretty sure you had something to do with it,” he said.

“I told you that I’d help get her into the water.”

“Who are you people?” he asked and chuckled in bewilderment.

Big Riff scaled the side of the whaleboat in one leap and landed hard on the deck. The Rosa Lynn floated backward, away from the shore. He got on his feet as fast as he could to help her climb the railing before the current took the boat any farther out to sea, but she was gone. He looked back and forth along the bow but found no signs of her. He strained his eyes to focus into the murky and savage waves. She wasn’t trapped underneath the water either.

“Hello?” he yelled into the darkness. “Where are you?”

He paused for a reply. The only sounds were the creaking of the Rosa Lynn rocking in the tide and the soft lapping of the waves on the shoreline. Then he heard a little girl giggling in the distance.

Goosebumps covered his arms as he looked toward the beach. That same red balloon bounced along the sand; the little girl in the red dress skipped from the tree line, casually chasing her toy again.

Big Riff gripped the railing, his knuckles turning white. This time he decided not to leave the boat. He wanted no part of whatever time-trapped cycle might possess this island.

The Rosa Lynn accelerated backward into the darkness of the deep ocean. Big Riff didn’t move, didn’t even blink, until the island was just a speck of sand in the distance.

When he could no longer see land anymore, he slunk to the deck, and his hand rested on something soft. He looked down and raised the item to his face for a closer look.

That same torn red dress hung loosely over his fingers.

Big Riff was startled awake by the Rosa Lynn stopping violently on the shoreline of another island. Adrenaline pounding through his veins, he jumped up and rubbed his eyes. Searching the deck, he found no trace of the red dress. Vanished.

The whaleboat lodged between two large rocks a few yards from the beach. He immediately noticed this island was different. The topography changed abruptly to jagged rocks only a few feet from where the ocean met the shore.

Climbing from the boat, he crossed the sand in mere seconds and crawled like a toddler over the rocks. Their pointy tips cut into his palms, and, the few times he slipped, they sliced open his pants.

After traveling far enough over the rocks to where he couldn’t hear the pounding of the waves anymore, he could see a shack in the center of a dirt field. When he reached the end of the rocky terrain, he stood upright. The structure was constructed of three solid walls. The fourth wall consisted of metal bars, like a jail cell.

Big Riff listened intently for any signs of life. A subtle movement came from inside the makeshift prison.

“Hello?” he called.

The movement stopped.

“You’re here already? Come closer so I can see if you’re Riff or a different one.”

Big Riff warily stepped toward the cell and stopped close enough to look through the bars. A man sat on a bench, his knees tucked to his chin, his face hidden by long disheveled hair. The threads of his sleeves were unraveling. He was barefoot and smelled rancid.

“Who are you?” Big Riff asked, keeping his distance.

The man lifted his head.

“Biggles?” Big Riff exclaimed.

“Not on this island. Biggles only exists on the Rosa Lynn. Just like you only exist wherever you’re headed. All of you are from somewhere, even if you’ve never been there yet.”

“You are Biggles. You look just like—”

The man sprang from the bench and shot an arm through the bars.

“Biggles drives my damn boat. I haven’t been out of this room in almost two centuries, while that son of a b***h does whatever he wants with my Rosa Lynn.”

“Two hundred years? You’re crazy, man.”

“How’d Mary start the bisect this time?” the man asked. “What did she do to trigger your journey tonight?”

“How do you know—?”

“Just answer the damn question!”

“I stole a mandolin. From that moment on, everything’s been like something out of The Twilight Zone.”

“Stole a mandolin? Wow, she is getting lazy,” the man said, chuckling. “I guess she stopped caring about originality. A few lives ago, she would’ve plotted some real doozies to activate the bisect. I’m a little disappointed in her creative integrity, to be honest.”

“This is ridiculous. I’m taking the boat, and I’m leaving,” Big Riff said and turned toward the jagged rocks.

“You’ll only drift right back to another island. There’s no returning. Not to any sort of real life anyway. This is your fate. You’ll keep bouncing from island to island until you find one that suits you, and there you’ll stay forever. And alone. Unless, of course, another one of you lands on that island too. But by then, you’ll have grown senile and deranged.”

“Another one of me?” Big Riff asked, as he remembered Mary and Biggles mentioning something about last time involving cattlemen and Glen Shiel, or something like…“You’re not implying reincarnation, are you?”

“I’m implying penance, punishment.”

“Punishment for who?”

“For you. For me,” the man answered. “I’m you. You’re me. Biggles is us. I know this isn’t the first time tonight you recognized yourself.”

“The car.”

“The red convertible. Yes. You caught a glimpse in the sideview mirror of—”

“Myself. I saw myself in both reflections, sitting in the car. And you…you remind me of myself. And Biggles, there’s something familiar about him also. Who are you?”

“I’ve explained and apologized so many times now, with each incarnation of you, that I don’t believe it’s heartfelt anymore. I’m not really sure I care either. May I ask one more question? What was Mary doing when you met her?”

“She was a stripper named Kelpie.”

The man exploded into hysterics, laughing so hard he doubled over, grabbing his sides, and eventually had to lie on the floor. He slapped the dirt as he caught his breath between laughs. After a few moments, he collected himself and wiped tears from his eyes.

“Oh, that’s classic. That might be the best one yet. A stripper? Oh, jeez.” He sounded like he was ready to burst into laughter again but composed himself. “Kelpie, you say?”

“Yeah. That was her stage name.”

“Do you even know what a Kelpie is?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s a shape-shifting water spirit. I think you misunderstood her. Mary was her stage name. She was using her real name as a stripper. You have it backward.”

“You mean, she’s…not real?”

“Oh, she’s real, all right. And I’m afraid I put you in this predicament.”

“You?”

“I was a whale hunter. I’ve killed hundreds, selling their blubber to the highest payer. I had three children and a young wife. Before I started whaling, we didn’t have enough money to eat more than once a day. So I worked on a fishing boat. It was cheaper for the captain to let me go home with a bucket of fish than dip into his wallet for payment. Then we started whaling. That’s when the money really came rolling in, and I got greedy. Money speaks, and, on a whaleboat, soft hearts lose. And that’s how I wound up in here, forever.”

“By killing whales? Wasn’t it legal to kill whales back then? And how’ve you managed to stay alive for so many years?”

“True, it was legal to hunt whales, but I murdered two very special ones. And that was my, and your, downfall.”

“Why were those whales so important?”

“They were Kelpie’s parents.”

The words were sprayed to the wind. Silence hung heavily in the air.

“What does this have to do with me?”

“This is retribution for my crimes—an infinite imprisonment. And you’re part of her revenge. She’ll never forgive me. Her fury runs too deep. Keeping me in this tiny room for all eternity isn’t satisfying enough. She wants to punish me over and over, as many times as she can, as often as she can. So she keeps creating more versions of me. And each one—which is what you are, another version of me—is sentenced here among a limitless row of islands. Each new me who she creates is another means to abuse us, while keeping me here in the cell. All of you are paying my dues.”

“I’m not buying a word of this crazy talk. If Biggles is just another version of you too, why is he not banished here also?”

“My theory is Kelpie can’t come out here and she’d die if she travels too far after the bisect happens. She needs someone to transport each prisoner from the real world to the nothingness. I’m convinced Biggles, the backstabbing bastard, was offered some kind of deal.”

“If he continues to work for her, he won’t be stuck here himself,” Big Riff finished.

“Exactly. He’s her little loyal puppy.” The man spat on the ground in disgust. “And he’s got my Rosa Lynn.”

“I have the Rosa Lynn! Not him. He disappeared when we reached the first island and left it behind.”

“Don’t be foolish. That’s just another version of her. Like you’re another version of me. The real Rosa Lynn is back in the real world with Biggles at the helm. The real Rosa Lynn is the one that gets us through the bisect.”

“I still don’t know what that is.”

“The bisect is the point where the real world splits into the alternate universe where we are now. The separation from reality to this purgatory can’t happen unless a specific incident occurs—an action not only influenced by Kelpie but so completely out of character for us that Mother Nature herself loses a grip on her control. Mother Nature doesn’t just roll over and die though. She deploys her lackeys in the form of recognizable beings to try to save us before we reach the Rosa Lynn. Kelpie acts like she’s protecting us, but really they’re the ones trying to save us.”

“Stealing that f*****g mandolin. And the police weren’t really police? They were trying to save me from her? Goddamnit,” Big Riff yelled.

“It doesn’t matter. She would’ve gotten you at some point anyway. There’s no escaping your fate.”

“Being a prisoner on all these islands?”

“No. Being me. There are probably thousands of me, you, out here roaming these islands. And there’ll be an indefinite more born, just to be herded here for her sick, sadistic amusement and revenge.”

Big Riff absentmindedly moved his foot back and forth in the dirt.

“Deep down, you believe me. Deep down, you know this is true,” the man said.

“There’s absolutely no way back? Even if I wait until the next bisect and I navigate the boat—?”