Writing

He stands on white sand, the beach of beginning, the place where many have come and stood, and they stared out at that sea, at that journey that for now is placid and calm, a sun-drenched sail across waveless waters, their destination within reach; but he knows it is not so; he knows there are sunken ships just beyond the clear waters, watery graves among the jutting rocks, the waves that rise and threaten, the danger, the confusion, when the compass is spinning, the map is wrong, gone, destroyed; he knows what swims out there in the night, the stars sparkle on raging waters, but below is the beast, the destroyer who would drag him down to the dark, the darkness, the empty black below the world where words are never seen and they are buried, where stories have rotted; he should turn around and walk back to safety, to the place where morning comes without an alarm and he has only to travel from A to B, he does not have to create A or B or worry about C and Z, not in this place where he is a drone, because there is a path there already; he is not in danger of sinking because he is not sailing there, not creating there, he is like everyone else--but he won't turn back because he is also empty there, he is full of dreams that become nothing, he is incomplete . . . he pulls the boat into the water, he raises the sail, he makes for the horizon; he will face the waves, the darkness, the beast below, he will reach the end of the world, he will write this story, he will be a scribe for this tale, because he must, because there is beauty at the other end, there is a journey complete--now he goes, he parts the water, he sails, sails, writes.