4.
As the old man spoke of the dying of the crew, the young man’s face turned white. He jumped up and tried to step away. But the old man stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. Bony and gnarled and cold it seemed, the hand of a ghost returned from the sea.
The young man shouted. Get away! Go back!
Relax, the old man said. I am just a sailor with a story to tell.
The young man sat down. And the old man continued…
Death left me alive with them. My dead crewmates and I floated in that forsaken sea. And as I looked at those dead men, the living things of the sea swirled and jumped in the waters around the ship.
I looked out on those living things and back at the dead around me. And I looked up to heaven and tried to pray, but the sky and the sea…
Oh the sea and the sky and those poor dead men cursed me where I stood. And no prayer came to my lips while the eyes of the fallen stared up at me.
Up came the sun and down it went for seven days and seven nights. Yet there I was alone alive out in that forsaken place.
Up came the moon and down it went for seven nights and seven days. Out in the water the sea things swirled and jumped. They were blue and black and glossy green and they swam in circles of foaming white and silver-gold. And I watched them dancing on the waves.
Oh, happy living things. Oh, beautiful things. As I stood there marvelling, the world exploded in love all around me. And in that very moment heaven took pity on me, and the Albatross fell from my neck and sunk down into the sea.