And from that darkness, stretching its veil across the churning ocean, came a pale light. The sailors hardly noticed the sun rise as they busied themselves with the rigging and the sails, but the old man, their sole passenger, looked up at the rising dawn and smiled, the salty breeze washing over his ancient face.
Below deck, where the waters squeezed the timbers into making low creaks, a brass machine of startling visual complexity, made a clunking sound as one of its many thousand gears rotated for the first time in the voyage.
‘I may be fool fer askin’,’ the captain said, standing by the old man, ‘but what exactly is it ye be taking ashore?’
The old man considers. ‘A wiser man than me once said that human misery is not absolute, things can always get worse. A wiser man than he later said, that human delight is similarly infinite.’
The old man lets out a happy, if tired, sigh. ‘I am bringing them more time, so they can explore both.’
Paddy Dobson
1st January 2021