Helplessness (1.1)

In the vast expanse of the ocean, where the waves rise and fall like the chest of a sleeping giant, there drifted a small boat carrying a young child. Jonah was alone here in this emptiness, at the mercy of the currents and the wind.
 
It had been three nights and four blistering days on the water since he last saw his father on the Princess Faye. They had eaten rations of salt pork in the gently swaying hammocks below deck, then set to the task of gathering up Jonah’s possessions for his move into accommodations under the quarter-deck. There was no need for him to sleep among the boatswains now that father would have a cabin with an extra bunk. Besides, he would be fully occupied as Helper-Pilot, a title he bestowed upon himself, to father who, in addition to ascending into the position of first mate, would continue his various roles as sailing master. Although the Faye’s increasing lack of skilled manpower was a constant problem, the succession of rank had been quick and without any objections, if not unceremonious due to the circumstances. Heaving Jonah’s netted sack over his shoulder and grasping the other handle of the trunk, father and son hauled themselves through the dimly lit hive of bodiless hangmen and up the stairs, making sure to position their steps in the foot-worn chords of each run toward the blazing light above.
 
Jonah fingered the similarly shaped depression in the seat of the lifeboat as another swell gently rotated the world around him, first to the left, then to the right. “Father, I miss you” he wept in his mind for the thousandth time. His clothes, now dry on top from the midday sun, were still in good shape despite his once-white shirt now stained beige. “I’m sorry, father,” as his heart ached. A shoe slid from one side of the boat to the other, the only item out of sync with the roiling mass of his existence. “Don’t leave me” he breathlessly mouthed, throat tight, his eyes burning. Slumped over the seat with one arm under his head and his legs extended like a lounging cat, the rocky spires of the of the island peeked above the gunwale with each cycle of the waves.