In the middle of the sea, no larger than a mote, there kicked a little man, with no hope to stay afloat.
Adrift, the man had been, for eons so it felt, bobbing, tiny, in the ocean blue, amongst the fish and kelp.
The man had had a ship, a bastion of the ocean! The ship was strong and tough, and it held the man\'s devotion.
\"If I maintain my perfect vessel, then surely it won\'t fail! I\'ll fix it day and night, and I\'ll fight for it tooth and nail!\"
The sea it seems, however, had had different plans in mind. It had beat upon the hull until the hold was full of brine.
The ship became disdainful, said \"How dare you let me sink! If you really were my captain, you would pull me from the drink!\"
\"But I am just a man!\" Exclaimed our sailor in despair, but the ship -half-sunk beneath the waves- could neither hear nor care.
Deeper dove the ship until the the waves covered it\'s nameplate. The man clung to the railing; he\'d ensure he shared this fate.
But then a swell came crashing and it knocked the man afloat. He kept his head above the crest and gazed upon his boat.
The ship, she turned and laughed, said \"It\'s your weight that made me drown! Now I am free to sail the sea; not hauling you around!\"
And then the ship, she sailed away, her hull still full of water. The rust and salt beneath her decks, to her, we\'re not a bother.
The man cried out and screamed his loss until his voice was hoarse, but the effort left him tired and made swimming all the worse.
And so the man remains adrift, until the day he drowns. His ship, his love, his only home sails on to shores abound.
The man might find a plank, an oar -debris that floats- to grip, but his fate will still remain the same, for none of it\'s his ship.