No Cabbage

The ship was full of rats. They ate all the cabbage. Though, even the rats avoided the bread; the moldy foul bread we were forced to consume day after endless day. Our water supply was running low. But we didn’t think about that much, surrounded as we were by more water then we dared contemplate. Sometimes the sheer volume of the ocean got to us. We would stare at the sea and get a bit queasy. When we were especially melancholy we would add our own precious bile-tinged water to the frothing mass below. I don’t think any of us believed the sea would ever end. We each had our own beliefs about what we would find beyond the blue, but even our faith was washed away by the pure mind-numbing pain of the journey.   

We desperately needed God’s help to win the Crusades. So Rome had decided to send us across the sea in hope of proving to him our supreme faith. There were even those who thought God might be waiting for us on other side. We were an eclectic coalition. Our little group could surpass even Constantinople in terms of cosmopolitanism.  On our ship there were a couple Englishmen, some Castilliens, a rich Venitien looking for adventure, a representative from the Papal States, a few Muslum prisoners of war to help us navigate, and two Greeks; Byzantium wanted to ensure God met someone who had eaten properly risen communion, not just those uncouth Catholic wafers.   

There were arguments, but for the most part we were too miserable for much arguing; the rats had eaten our cabbage. The Muslums told us we needed something fresh, but we assumed our sickness was caused by their offending God, with unnatural calculations. The Bible didn't talk about numbers, so they must be worse than useless. As time progressed, lost in monotony, we sickened. Soon we could only lie there, groaning, praying as the sea rocked our boat.

I think we must have died. The sky folded in on us, becoming one with the sea. Time ceased to function. We had fallen off the edge: the edge of
space, the edge of time. Our journey no longer made sense. There was no need to go searching for God; God was everything. I no longer had any notion of individuality. Without the horizon, all other lines dissolved.  Even the Muslums were part of this unbroken entirety. Suddenly, I understood the beauty in their calculations. If everything was part of the same whole, the most wondrous thing we could do was to reveal God’s genius, to glorify the wondrous miracle of life. I felt an intense loss. To glorify something you have to feel your separateness. You must delineate yourself to acknowledge the beauty in others.

In death, we were finally together. But without our individuality, togetherness was obsolete. We cursed and we were cursed for wasting all our energy, all our beautiful time as ourselves, on something as imbecilic as the Crusades.