As I stare at broken glass and imagine myself looking out a window, from the high rise of the

baked hill of our town, the ships passing to and fro, rising from the horizon and, also there,
disappearing—then I am reminded of the silverbacks that used to glide into and out of sight of
the ravines from the farther reaches of the East. They had gentle scales, soft as smoothened
pebbles, glinting like marbles under the westering moon until they were made calloused by the
cooking, baked too hard. I remember too frequently how they seemed to---come alive---when I
sat on the patches of hay and pondered their googling eyes, their spiderwebbed fins, blue as
lazuli, almost flippering.
One time, I jumped, yelped out. "It's alive!"
My family, all of them strangers, all of them foreign to my mind's eye now, all their bronze-red
faces and their grim-lined foreheads, their yellowy eyes shuffling here and there.
"You're crazy, you're crazy," my mother said. She sat down on the loam floor and ate with her
hands. Some of the flesh stuck to her chin and some of the potatoes, too. They were hard and
bulging, those potatoes. I do not remember anything else save those, though I had eaten them for
more than a thousand days.
Everything to us passes by so quickly. The winds are an easterly blow then a western one. Until
everything is barren for a few weeks, a few months. The sails are hoisted, the men skitter, the
captain grunts and yells, but all who are on land continue to go about their days. They are slow
days and very good ones. And so, it is always a surprise to see oneself look at his skin and see
dragon-like scales appearing. At first, the muscle sags a bit, wrinkles here and there appearing,
and nobody notices for everything is slow and trickles now, now, now...
It is a good time to live in. Everything appears to us in moments and we grab those moments. We
hook them to our chests and we hold them close to our hearts. We squander those moments here,
in this place, in this port, they are good moments. But perhaps that is the only thing we can ever
have: moments. Time as change. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps everything that serves us signs of
anything passing by is when something appears that has never, like those ships, erupted from our
horizons: a new ship, gleaming all sorts of colors we have not yet memorized, manned by men
whose noxious smells have not yet assaulted our tongues.
Then, we are vigilant for a while. It is good to be cautious. Many a time, change harms, change
kills, change decays. Death is change. The greatest change, I think. And we are all aware of that.
But, then, slowly, so slowly that we do not even notice it at all, our wary tones, strained and
strict, mellow and then turn into gentler and gentler tones until we are friends with those foreign
seadogs. And their faces are no longer foreign: they are as welcome as those who came from the
town itself, from the port itself.
It is a good time to live in. Everything is in moments: the smiles; the laughs; the dances; the
songs; the communion;---yes, if only I was not a fool then, if only I had been more courageous,
if only I had not taken things for granted. I would have squandered you then, you boundless
Now!
Yes, it was a good time to live in. How long ago it was, I am not sure. I wish I was there; I think
I am there. I have long gotten used to the whiskey-like pang of tears and sweat here: because I
am a slave, a rotten slave, a pirate's slave. They have been gliding from the north farther and
farther into the south now, until, I think, they shall reach the borders of the world. South-west,
where the world is said to end. I think they call it Turuk-ham. The Door.
I do not know why I know this; I do not know why I am still alive. Many have died. Indeed,
many choose to kill themselves by ingesting poison they have smuggled from other prisoners
when we are at anchor---some inspectors are kind enough to see our pathetic, smattered faces
and give us a vial of poison. If they didn't, they just beat us up and spat on us. Not enough to kill
us, only shame us.
"Enough for a few of you, I reckon," said one of the former. He was fat, belly bulging from his
brown, tightly-buckled belt. Stumpy, I called him in my mind. "Eat it at night. It'll give you a
good doozy before raking everything out. Serve you better than this here," he said, hitting the
wooden walls.
Inspectors they called them, in the Underworld. They checked goods, cargoes, bartered for sums
here and there. They held power. Yes, they held power. I think that is why the pirates so thought
it right to murder and enslave many from the town. From the town...I forget the name. I forget
the name. I am slowly forgetting everything that I once held dear. Perhaps even those memories I
played in my mind were nothing but the excited titillations of a mind descending slowly into
madness. We were not rich then. We had no power. Of course! Power! Were I to have that! Just
that! For the next few years of my life---what life?
"I shall have none of that left," I muttered. It was night. The ship was anchored to port. The
waves chuckled underneath. Footsteps squeaked above. Snoring.
I looked around. I was the only one awake. I had power then. I stayed awake. I think that is the
thing---the most important thing. I had no power. I had no power. Were I to survive this, for
whatever reason, for whatever hopeful reason, for whatever chance, possibility, hope—if I
survived this, I would gather power and erupt from the ground to make all them pay. I'll make
them pay, every one of them.