Wooden Ship – On Fire and Ice

The wooden ship appeared on the crest of a wave and perched there for as long as frozen things can remain frozen at freezing temperatures. Not forever since the cycle of water is a cycle. 

The ship would not be toppled for another century. I know this because I am the only one who will see it. As a figment of my imagination I alone can say how long ice will last around here because I hold the dial of the sun as a thermostatitition, not as a scientist. Here I can make up words but I can’t lie about science because my imagination keeps me under a century into the future when all those science fiction things supposedly take off. With ice, scientists are giving us less time to act so I better be careful not to prolong this.  

The ship, frozen in place, can now be discussed in the present tense since it’s still here fresh in my mind and time doesn’t freeze, it just cycles through when you’re stuck in one place for a moment. 

The ship looks like it’s been through the ravages of time and war. The sails are tattered and the bulkheads of the deck have been chipped away by boots and musket minie balls but luckily no cannon balls. 

There have been plenty of fires snuffed out on the deck by those same boots and wet blankets that the sailors also wrap in after a battle or storm. The frigid, salty night air is colder with clinging wet clothes close to the skin but a wet wool blanket will insulate the shivering sailor as well as a dry wool blanket would  during winter in a tent on the won battlefields back on land where the boughs of 100 year old trees were cut to build this fortified wooden ship. 

Trees still burn in winter, preferably to give us warmth. Portions of the ocean still churn in winter with water temperatures below freezing. Battleships of yore were not built to withstand neither fire nor ice. This battleship has withstood both fires of war and ice of lore because I have yet to wipe away the beads of sweat that formulate this sentence from the window of my imagination. 

My imagination will remain frozen until my interest in fire has me claiming to see angels in water once again.