Sailor

I have set sail along the equator. Not any ordinary equator, but the one that separates the seas of hope and hopelessness. Churned by the currents of tempest and winds of change, they challenge any sailor and their vessel.

The means by which any sail is crucial. Many vessels are built of dreams, others of wishes, many of both. I built mine from the steel of my nerves and the flexibility of my mind powered by my resolve.

The seas are treacherous out there; a ship can be broken in so many ways that many who have never sailed sink before they leave the harbor. Some sail and sink just before they make landfall.

For several long years I have sailed these seas. The squalls leave as quickly as they come raining sadness from contaminated clouds of sorrow. Other times, the seas are calm and smooth like glass; the air, stagnant, threatening to never return could drive any man to jump overboard.

But this sailing isn't straightforward. While there are the lucky few who get to the other side quickly, many sailors and ships stray from course. They may head north or south or simply go around in circles.

For a journey like this, there are no charts or maps no compasses or forms of guidance. A sailor can only go on gut instinct. Many may not ever reach the other side. But reaching it is enough.

I have heard it is something to behold. I have heard it looks no different from where we came from. It's been said that it can change you from the inside out altering your view of yourself and possibly how you see everyone and everything around you. It's been said that it changes nothing.

It could be bleak, dark, tasteless out there on the other side, ravaged by fires of hatred, scorched by tumultuous waves of anger and left blackened to the core with layers of bitter solitude.

So with a prospect like that, why sail to see the other side, a possibly blackened land? The very question itself is enough to drive any sailor to find out. But it's the answer that's in that cargo that is what truly gives a sailor courage to sail these seas. If the grass is greener on the other side, where the rain falls from cloudless skies and drenches you an happiness… Then I'll risk it.

I'll risk the very essence of my integrity to even gaze upon such a land.