EBZWRITES: A dream about whispers
[From this prompt]
North, Israel Salvador thinks, leaning against the mast, is an objectionable direction.
Oh, it has its uses. Good for compass makers, and everyone who wants to visit Canada. Israel vaguely remembers tracking The Murderer though cold, dark, Northern forests, though, and he never had a compass. He made it out all right, didn't he? Because he knew which way East was. East, Israel has always felt, is the best direction for getting oneself oriented; it's even in the name.
But he's digressing. He'd been thinking about North. North?
“North...” he murmurs. An ungloved hand goes to his throat. There are no scars there, never when he dreams. His voice is baritone here, with the trace of a lilt and the trace of a drawl. Not that he spends that much time talking in dreams. What would be the point?
He hopes this isn't a slave ship, with the whispers beneath his feet. That, at least, in one good thing about cold, indifferent North; no plantations. Grandmother Debora was always fond of saying that morality follows economics, and there's hardly any reason to pretend people are chattel in cold places. Hardly any reason in hot places, for that matter, but people wanted extra hands for harvests. Maybe God should have given people two more arms.
Israel sighs. It's somewhat distressing to realize that he's actually more lucid here, despite the way his thoughts are wandering. His mind feels like the water here, flat, clear, reflective, but ultimately fluid and at the mercy of dumb forces, like the moon.
Or like a magnet.
Black, naked eyes are cast to the stormclouds, and Israel continues his voyage, lost in thoughts that he won't understand when he awakes.