HUMP-BACK WHALE
This strange cross-section of a life : liberty,
and flowers in a colonial garden. We were
to be leaving from New Bedford, this day,
when it was old and cold and rainy. I really
didn't want to go. Commitments already made,
things contracted for, money owed - there was
nothing I could do. The long, cold sea would kill
me, of that I was pretty sure. Whether it be six
months out, or just next week - either way I
would be stone, cold dead. The ship was called
'Maliosis', and I didn't even like that name - it
sounded precisely of death and doom already.
My paltry Latin knew the root word, 'mal' meant
up to no good ever at all. I ate my last meal as if
the hangman was coming - which I knew he
most certainly was, here in 1872.
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