Orlando was fiddling around with a quill, dipping it in ink to write some journey notes, as the sun set, at a small table on the deck of the Calabar. There was much sorting and planning going on around us, and Max had started up a conversation with the bigger birds, which he found to be broad speaking, but very amusing, indeed! I watched the gentle motion of the ship, straining from its mooring, as if it were eager to get away. The travellers were all talking in anticipation, some longing to set off. Captain Wilder approached, a swagger to her step, doling out orders here and there, and said “You there,” to Orlando, and he looked up from his writings. “Write something with your non-dominant hand, will you? Maybe then you’ll get somewhere. That page looks far too orderly for my liking, Sir!”
Orlando had set out lists of things he wanted to see and do, along the way. “I’ll tip ink all over it, and then it might look like something!” said Captain Wilder, with a huge grin. So he did, while Captain Wilder passed me an empty glass bottle with a cork, to throw it overboard. “Pardon, Captain, but wouldn’t it be a waste just to create something just to throw it overboard?” I received a shrewd look in return. “Let him write something great, of interest to someone, someone miles away, and shed that pall of orderliness about him. No doubt society would be to blame…as it usually is…where a particular kind of knowing is lacking…” Before I could answer, the Captain was away down the deck, ordering the others to do the same.
It was almost dark, and Orlando’s scrawl with his non-dominant hand was like a child’s as if he were five years old. He made a face and then shrugged, oddly satisfied at what he had written, an important message for someone far away. “Outlaw Brainwashing” it said, and he rolled it up into a scroll and I handed him the bottle which he corked with resolution. Raising his arm high, he tossed it to sea, where it bounced, and bobbed in the waves, already being carried off to its destination.
On doing this, new pictures began to form in Orlando’s head as well as mine. Curiosity arose, and we wondered who would receive this message, would we ever see them, and would they heed it? We started to feel more space in our minds, to think of other things, and the things we were going to collect on the journey, things that had never before been seen. Specimens of plants, rocks, and small creatures — only living things that we would capture, then set free again. Captain Wilder was right, the list began to take a more interesting shape, once Orlando returned to it anew.
(copyright Imogen Crest 2006.)
