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The Ebony Voyager
Angela Hurd
Flashes of bright light whitened the sky as and thick black drapes. When he returned to the
rain poured down on the captain. The storm was house, he painted it and covered the windows with
getting worse, and his ship was sinking. Waves the drapes. Now the house was the! color of the
beat against its sides, and water rushed over the sea at night. It was the symbol of his disgrace.
decks. Thunder crashed all around the frightened
passengers and crew. One night several of the neighbors came
to call on the captain. He invited them in. They .
The captain rushed across the deck, he had went into the study, which was lit by candles. There
to get the passengers into life boats and out to sea. they sat by the fire and began talking.
As he lowered the first life boat, a huge, black
wave enclosed the ship. Then everything disap- "My daughter, Anne, got married a month
peared into the deep, dark sea. ago and moved to the center of town," one neigh-
bor said, "and George ..."
When the captain awoke, he felt a sharp
pain in his chest and gritty sand pressing against The captain listened but remained silent.
his back. The cries of the crew and passengers He was no longer the pleasant host he had been
were still echoing in his ears. "Where am I?" he before the tragedy. His eyes were dark; the light
wondered. Then he saw people running towards and laughter were no longer present in them. An
him, and he knew that he was alive. aura of deep pain and suffering surrounded him.
They carried the captain to a nearby inn. "...parade this year was great. The whole
The innkeeper, a chubby, cheerful man, put him in town turned out to see it," another neighbor was
a small room. The innkeeper's kindly wife began saying. "The floats were beautiful. You would
to nurse him back to health. The days became a have loved the float the school made in memory
blur. Every night seemed to last forever. His
dreams were haunted by the thunder and lightning of your ship."
and the eerie sounds of death claiming its victims. "I should have gone down with my ship,"
He couldn't comprehend why he hadn't died with
the passengers and the crew. A captain should al- the captain replied.
For the next couple of weeks, the captain
ways go down with his ship.
One day, when the innkeeper came in to stayed inside his home. Then one day he began
carrying water from his well to his house. He
check on him, the captain asked, "Sir, what hap- worked tirelessly at his task for many weeks. Af-
pened to my ship, The Ebony Voyager?" ter a long day of trips to the well, he sat alone in
his study. He couldn't erase the memory of that
"Why, captain, it went down in the hurri- night. His mind was flooded with the sights and
cane. You were the only survivor." The innkeeper, sounds of rushing water and the screams of pas-
despite what he said, smiled. "All those poor sengers being thrown into the sea and of black
people are gone. You are extremely lucky to be water swallowing them. He still remembered be-
alive." ing thrown into the sea himself, still felt the icy
water, still heard the howling of the winds, still
The captain felt like a murderer. saw the people around him sinking helplessly into
Soon he returned to his home. When he the sea. Then, nothing until the beach.
had purchased this house, he had had it painted
the colors of the sea on a sunny day; green, blue All night he sat in his chair wondering,
and misty white. Bright and beautiful. He had "Why did I live? I wasn't meant to. How did I
loved the house almost as much as he loved his survive when all those people died?" Reason
ship. Now he couldn't bring himself to enter it. would not answer. His conscience would not an-
He went to the local store and bought black paint swer. Nothing would answer. He needed peace.
He needed escape. Then he knew he must go
