Bow Wave by Bobby Stevenson

There was a time, maybe it was ‘once upon’, I’m not too sure but I know it was when I was young and the world was new.

I dreamed of building a sailing vessel that would take me to some unknown land where I could tell my stories and be happy.

Throughout the years I built the vessel on dreams, on hopes, on tears, on lost time, and on the way the world should have been,and could have been, but mostly on hope.

Then the day came when the vessel was ready to sail.

There were many at the quayside that day. There were those who wished me well and many more who told me to stay where I was and there were those who didn’t care.

As I left the quay I knew it would be a long time before I spied land again.

It didn’t take me long to realise the mistakes I had made. I had been given maps by others who had noted the areas of ‘troubled waters’ and ‘here be monsters’ but it was their troubles and it was their monsters. So I threw the maps overboard.

By the third day the ship had barely made any headway and then I realised that the bow wave was slowing me down and washing aside everything in its wake.

I had to lighten the load and so I looked to the cargo. One trunk was marked ‘fears’, so I threw that over, as I did with the boxes marked ‘jealousy’ and ‘anger’.

The ship rose in the water slowly and the bow wave became smaller. I was sailing faster.

The final box, the heaviest, was Pandora’s and full of everything I thought of in the night, all my woes.

Over it went and the bow wave vanished.

As I looked back, I could see those on the shore still shouting that I was heading for the edge of the world, that no one could sail on a boat made of hope.

Do you know what I did?

I just gave a Bow and a Wave and

sailed on.