The Voyage of the Starlight

Concerning the Starlight’s Voyage to the Lost Creaky Forest, the Willow Isle, and the Pursuit of the shipwrecked vessel “the Mohican.” By P.B. Biles

There was a gust over the lake and it was beginning to rain steadily. I had reviewed my orders on shore; clearly they rang in my mind: give a full report on the Creaky Forest across the water, and retrieve the “Mohican,” the downed army vessel on the eastern shore where snakes and exotic beetles reside.

And all this for the glory of God and country. I was rushing against the wind on the Starlight, my flat paddle board, and battling the chopping waves as they lapped and gnashed at her bow. I could spot the forest through the haze, but what a wretched haze it was! I was doubled over against the wind and forced to use my hand to pin my cap to my head.  The Starlight was struggling to maintain decent track and sometimes hoisted off to the larboard in submission.

“Nay!” cried I. “Keep your mettle, young Star!” I continued to plunge the paddle into the restless water. The wind was fury and Starlight a neat blade. Here’s where I slightly began to question my orders. Understand, I drove the Starlight in my truck to a proper wharf, and there I launched; but it was here, on the very teeth of the Creaky Forest, I realized that the road I had driven on passed closely to forest itself, and a simple stroll may have sufficed. Yet of course it wouldn’t do to question orders, of course not. Here was the grand sea, and an adventure proudly in the making! I rowed on.

By and by I slid into a lagoon. The foreboding trees of the Creaky Forest were towering high and made pockets of shadow as the trees thickened toward the middle. The Starlight was soon in the flooded shoals and meandering through the forerunning trees, which were sparse, thin, and easily maneuverable. Then her bow met with a wicked looking willow tree and I stopped. I glanced behind my shoulder to ascertain the survival of the Starlight’s colors, the miniature American banner. It was gone, drowned somewhere in the shoals. I thrashed the oar in the water for a time to see if it would maybe rise to the surface, but I resurrected nothing. I was sailing naked, without a personage to account for. And how the Creaky Forest creaked. She creaked something awful, and spat forth windy suggestions of ghouls and foul spiders of the ancient order. An honor though it was to scout out her mystery.

I clambered on the willow and had an easy ascension since its length was bent over like an arc. At the peak I peered down at the water, then at the lake, trying to see traces of the lost “Mohican,” and then finally to the forest. There it was, a loom of dark magic and unspeakable intrigue.

I speculated for a good minute, dropped gingerly upon the Starlight again, and was on my way. I had conquered the Creaky Forest without a scratch on me.

Now the wind was in my favor and I was compelled to draw up the riggings. From the cargo hold I produced my bathroom towel. Seeing how the Starlight had lost her patriotism, I figured the sail could serve it for her. The towel was decorated ceremoniously with the face of a grinning cat, no doubt an instrument of intimidation. It was cartoonish and ridiculous but horrifying nonetheless.

We caught a fair western wind and began hurling east. The sail bulged and the Starlight’s bow cut like a blade through the grey. I lacked binoculars, but could just discern the Mohican’s overturned belly in the reeds. She glittered blue, just like the lost gem that she was.

“Onward, glorious Star!” I traversed with my vessel. “Nay we mustn’t cease. The heavenly call of this manifest destiny remains sealed.” Gish, posh, slosh! Forward we carried. As lightly as a balloon she wafted over the waves. At long last the wind pushed us gently into the marshy growth next to the Mohican. Here my filthy yet glorious labor was to begin. I lodged the Starlight between two thin trees and slipped waist deep into the water. Doubtlessly an oozy appendage of a serpent lingered inches away from my bare feet. I sided the Mohican, and as she was upside down, set to turning her right side up. Teeth gritted and lungs bursting with effort, I did so, and with a hefty splash the Mohican settled comfortably in the shallows. After retrieving a waterproof sack from the Starlight’s cargo, I bailed her out and made arrangements to sail her home. A harsh part of my orders was this: there will be a necessity for you, dear Biles, to return the Mohican to her place at Willow Isle, and swim the same length of that journey back to the Starlight. Why I wasn’t allowed proper rigging so I could hitch the boats together remains a mystery. I could have simply driven to the Creaky Forest, walked even, and here I was, after some stupid meditation, realizing I could have walked to the Willow Isle and swam after the Mohican without bothering about the Starlight. I grimaced. Clearly I had been taken advantage of. But in the Authority’s infinite wisdom I was reverent. I began to chug the Mohican all the way to her harbor at Willow Isle, trying to refute my vision’s caricature of the digesting storm clouds just above the trees.

“Bother,” I muttered. “Am I to be zinged to death by lightning on this noble voyage? Shall I aspire to be like Don Quixote, and like his insistent misconception of windmills being giants, consider this impending doom only a challenge which will surely fail under the nobility and pizzazz of my task and namesake?”

I paddled on. I abandoned the Mohican at Willow Isle in a hurry; may the Lord chastise me for the poor docking job. Like a frog takes to water I eagerly leaped into the shallows and flailed. There was my dear Starlight, quivering in the reeds. Of course, the moment my feet no longer met the bottom of the lake, our mutual Enemy of the Darker Worlds implanted horror in my mind. I must advise children under the age of fifteen to reluctantly skip the following paragraph, as it is imperative to describe the deep terrors of the water but far too graphic for young minds to bear.

Days earlier on another grand voyage, I had seen a “catfish” with the length of ten rapiers. I disturbed its nesting grounds and was nearly sunk by the wake it left as it dashed away. These fish have been known to swallow men whole, obese or not. And might I add the revolting serpents which writhe and wriggle in phalanxes of fifty or more in search of susceptible prey? Let’s not forget, mature brethren, of the nude mermaids, complex and heavenly in beauty but the Devil’s own deception in words. I thought I saw one of them as I struggled in the black water. Her white arms, ebony eyes and yellow hair, her lovely red lips fissuring the perfect cheeks—it granted me a brief illusion. Then, with the fortune of fellow homonyms, my mind changed the illusion into allusion. She was lust attempting to convert itself into beauty. But she didn’t fool me, stupid as the General may assume me; she had serpent eyes behind the glass.

 By the grace of Providence I returned safely to my ship. I threw my body over hers and lay on deck for a good five minutes before striking oars. My mission was complete. However infantile it seemed, this rowing in circles, I had done my duty, and the Starlight had done hers. We burst from the brush into the open void and fought our way home against the storm!

Theend