вавилонский голландец experiment
Oct. 27th, 2008 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wytchcroft(This is my attempt at an adaptation from the original Russian by stoshagownozad...)
Mariana stood with a small lamp in the womb of the 'Sea Bird'. No 'bird' now, the ship crept through the pitch darkness as an animal might burrow, like a mole or an insect, hard and chitinous.
The storm was approaching; through his radio the captain ordered all loose objects to be tethered - and for all crew not on watch to get below decks. Even the electric lights were cut. And there in the dark, Mariana clutched her lantern, protective of its puny light. She could indeed have grabbed one of the flare like torches - but in her heels she feared to walk with the fire live in her hands.
But, oh she needed light - here in the blackness everything distorted - no shape or object could be relied on, no sound was trustworthy - for it seemed to Mariana that she could hear even the ship itself now, whispering in fear of the cold sea and the maelstrom outside.
And the whispering became a howl as the wind tore across the superstructure of the vessel and the waves strove to crumple the coverings on the deck. And the howl was a groan almost human.
Mariana sighed and protecting her lamp as best she could, willed herself forward into the darkness. She was frightened, desperately forcing herself onward - with no sense of direction, relying on memory to guide her body through the rumble and roar. The floor underfoot was heaving this way and that and up and down and -
she felt something jar her elbow painfully, the lantern falling away even as Mariana clutched for it.
So now the darkness was total - all movement became reduced to step by step by single step until she felt the cold bump of the ladder and attempted to climb.
The sounds from the ship had not abated - the constant voice about her was almost enough to drive her to distraction as she climbed towards the gangway she hoped was above.
Almost.
"But you won't do it - do you hear me ship!?" The ship did not want her to reach anyone - none of the people whose faces she ached to see - the ship wanted her nowhere but the dark.
"Do you hear me Ship?!" she yelled again. There was no clear answer - just the moan from the metal of the hull. It knows, she thought. I'm not brave - and I'm no seaman. A good sailor now would be lying in his bunk - or at least carrying out the captain's orders. But here I am and I'm not following any commands. and when I get to the deck I will be washed clean away and gone.
She had reached the top of the ladder and the short gangway to the door. It was a heavy door and she was almost too tired now to push through it - and then the ship buckled again and she there - somersaulting almost into the room. Unsteady on his feet she had one last look back at the dark and then turned to face the room. There was a sink and she tottered across too it, gratefully splashing water into her face, trying to get the awful stuffy feeling from her eyes, nose and mouth.
And then the ship slid once more beneath her and she was flung hard and breathless against the wall and the glass of the porthole.
She could see the outside - and it paralysed her.
Seven ships there were; terrible vessels ancient and decrepid. Seven, Mariana knew - somehow she knew, somehow she counted them. There were seven and their sails were lilac an dark blue. Dead ships, ghouls emerging from the lighting glow of the storm and the dirty water.
The ship was terrified of them. The tone of its voice becoming a whine a wounded sound - and it caught between the words sputtered suddenly from the intercom. "We will be overturned - this is not our course! - we passed here a week ago - forever - we will be lost - and curses swirled out from the speaker. But Mariana heard everything as if in a dream now, her ears full of cotton wool. She was listening with her mind now for the voices of the ships through the window.
They wanted the 'Seabird' she knew it and the ship knew it too.
There was but one gap between the circling ships and the Seabird did not want to go there, moving slowly with a hiss of diesel and protest.
........................................................................................
my own attempt at a Babylon Dutch story is here.
Mariana stood with a small lamp in the womb of the 'Sea Bird'. No 'bird' now, the ship crept through the pitch darkness as an animal might burrow, like a mole or an insect, hard and chitinous.
The storm was approaching; through his radio the captain ordered all loose objects to be tethered - and for all crew not on watch to get below decks. Even the electric lights were cut. And there in the dark, Mariana clutched her lantern, protective of its puny light. She could indeed have grabbed one of the flare like torches - but in her heels she feared to walk with the fire live in her hands.
But, oh she needed light - here in the blackness everything distorted - no shape or object could be relied on, no sound was trustworthy - for it seemed to Mariana that she could hear even the ship itself now, whispering in fear of the cold sea and the maelstrom outside.
And the whispering became a howl as the wind tore across the superstructure of the vessel and the waves strove to crumple the coverings on the deck. And the howl was a groan almost human.
Mariana sighed and protecting her lamp as best she could, willed herself forward into the darkness. She was frightened, desperately forcing herself onward - with no sense of direction, relying on memory to guide her body through the rumble and roar. The floor underfoot was heaving this way and that and up and down and -
she felt something jar her elbow painfully, the lantern falling away even as Mariana clutched for it.
So now the darkness was total - all movement became reduced to step by step by single step until she felt the cold bump of the ladder and attempted to climb.
The sounds from the ship had not abated - the constant voice about her was almost enough to drive her to distraction as she climbed towards the gangway she hoped was above.
Almost.
"But you won't do it - do you hear me ship!?" The ship did not want her to reach anyone - none of the people whose faces she ached to see - the ship wanted her nowhere but the dark.
"Do you hear me Ship?!" she yelled again. There was no clear answer - just the moan from the metal of the hull. It knows, she thought. I'm not brave - and I'm no seaman. A good sailor now would be lying in his bunk - or at least carrying out the captain's orders. But here I am and I'm not following any commands. and when I get to the deck I will be washed clean away and gone.
She had reached the top of the ladder and the short gangway to the door. It was a heavy door and she was almost too tired now to push through it - and then the ship buckled again and she there - somersaulting almost into the room. Unsteady on his feet she had one last look back at the dark and then turned to face the room. There was a sink and she tottered across too it, gratefully splashing water into her face, trying to get the awful stuffy feeling from her eyes, nose and mouth.
And then the ship slid once more beneath her and she was flung hard and breathless against the wall and the glass of the porthole.
She could see the outside - and it paralysed her.
Seven ships there were; terrible vessels ancient and decrepid. Seven, Mariana knew - somehow she knew, somehow she counted them. There were seven and their sails were lilac an dark blue. Dead ships, ghouls emerging from the lighting glow of the storm and the dirty water.
The ship was terrified of them. The tone of its voice becoming a whine a wounded sound - and it caught between the words sputtered suddenly from the intercom. "We will be overturned - this is not our course! - we passed here a week ago - forever - we will be lost - and curses swirled out from the speaker. But Mariana heard everything as if in a dream now, her ears full of cotton wool. She was listening with her mind now for the voices of the ships through the window.
They wanted the 'Seabird' she knew it and the ship knew it too.
There was but one gap between the circling ships and the Seabird did not want to go there, moving slowly with a hiss of diesel and protest.
........................................................................................
my own attempt at a Babylon Dutch story is here.
