Back on the same bridge, we watch schools of small fish leap through the air, holding onto their lives for now. Again, every glance is dissolving into beauty, into light, and then the image is as if it never was. I no longer exist in an ordinary way. This is paradise, radiant, blessed, the home of grace, and I can’t take it with me when I return to my weighty, earthy, human existence. I know that now. The problems I left behind will still be knocking at my door. I understand that this spacious, love-filled realm of eternity belongs to gods and the world of time belongs to man and I am not a god.
Early next morning begins with a knock on the hull.
‘Hello. Je suis Kareen. I have come for the crew working. Je suis Francaise. Mon Anglais n’est pas bon.’ She is pretty and thirty and wants to
