The Passenger: Initial

He did not want this assignment. He would have none of it. But the boss was insistent. Well, he knew just what to do: he was skipping town. He would go as far as it was humanly possible. So far away no one would be able to seek him out. He would see what would happen then.

It was not that he did not like his boss. Contrary to that, he adored Him. It was just that he had come to so understand Him that sometimes, he reckoned he knew Him better than the most and could tell what He was likely to do. And that was the chief reason he was shirking this task.

He considered where to go. He could go to Ur—it was almost at the end of the world. But it was a strenuous journey that would involve many days across hot, arid lands and require alternately riding on beasts of burden and walking. No! That would not do. In as much as he wanted to get far away, he needed to do so with minimal inconvenience to himself. He contemplated Cush. It was totally alien. He did not know much about it save that it was peopled by tall, fierce, dark-skinned warriors. That form of adventure he could do without.

It came to him as he trudged along the stony, dusty street of Samaria. Tarshish! He would go west, far west... Yes.

Once the decision was made, things went much easier. All the money he had in the world was tied around his loins in a scrip. It was not much and he always carried it around on his person. He got to a street corner and checked it. It should be enough. Once, he got to Joppa, he would get on a ship bound for Tarshish. And it was bye-bye Israel.



The sailors were no boys. Seasoned by experience, toughened by rough waters and weather and coarsened by life, they were a rowdy, foul-mouthed bunch who would not hesitate to throw a punch for any, or no, cause.

Like most seamen, they could not be qualified as religious. Yes, they were from homes and places that had gods and more than half had at some point served these deities. But that was then—they’d moved on. Hedonism, though unlabelled, ruled their existence. They drank very much—thank you, had mistresses in every port and gambled copiously. However, they left some room for national and family gods—and sacrificial items to appease them (if the need arose). Who did not know there were many things in the seas that defied the competence and understanding of mortals? Such things as required the supernatural intervention of the gods.

They were led by Argonur—a burly, sinewy, ten cubits tall hulk with a sun-burnt, leathery face. He rarely smiled, when he did it was short-lived and exposed two missing incisors (the upper, adjacent the lower)—outcome of bar brawls. He never spoke, everything he uttered was shouted—and when he was in a good mood, the volume went many notches higher and was accompanied by raucous laughter and thumping with the palm, of tables, backs, walls and whatever else was handy. Wine was known to usually engender that state.

He'd been captaining ships from the age of fifteen when as a Mate he led a successful mutiny that overthrew the abusive and largely incompetent captain of their brigantine. He only needed a really bad storm whipping their vessel on every side to convince the others he would do a better job. And he'd done that for two years. Then he quit. The crew could not understand why he would walk away. But Argonur knew what he wanted and The Rameses was not it. After fruitful stints with two other ships he got press-ganged. He was having a ball till circumstances forced him to leave. Since then he ran passengers and cargoes. After half a decade he’d earned a name as one who got things done regardless of the laws of governments and gods.

It was his ship Jonah chose. Jonah knew they would get him to his destination. He paid the fare and boarded. He did not allow the fact that he was practically broke bother him. Not even the fact that he would go hungry for a better part of the voyage could weigh him down. He was too buoyed up in his spirit. He went down to the hold of the ship, arranged a make-shift bed from a torn mast and an old ship’s flag and lay down. He was promptly asleep.
Argonur had grown to Commander in the naval fleet of Tyre and Sidon. Then the admiral caught him providing services to his wife that she seemed very much to enjoy but which had almost given the man apoplexy. Argonur left both his clothes and his homeland—to have stayed was sure death. But he grabbed his purse—to have left it was suicide. He used its contents to return to the sea. The Sea-Horse was nothing like his last ship but it was all his, and that counted for something.

Years had passed since that incident but he was not certain someone wasn’t still looking for him. Every now and then he got the feeling eyes were watching him. However, he was not one to dwell long on unpleasant happenings or thoughts of their occurrence. He took precautions, stayed alert and lived in the moment. You only died once.

He was in his cabin when the storm hit. It was boisterous; the wind merciless. It lashed against the mast, the ropes and the sides of the ship. It was beginning to snap riggings and break the hull. It tossed the ship like a child would a Babylonian copper coin. Each time this happened, some water got into the ship. Everybody joined in the effort to save the ship. Everybody that is, except Jonah.

Jonah was soundly enwrapped in a dreamless sleep. Like one held in the hypnotic embrace of Shalim, he turned and settled in more comfortably with each roll of the ship.

Abadrimmon was ship’s Mate. A wily, slim-to-the-point-of-thin, diminutive man, what he lacked in stature, he more than made up for in astuteness and courage. A man whose only love was the sea, the sailors would follow him to the end of the world—if Argonur were out of the picture. They had long ago forgiven him his one vice, gambling. Occasionally they even let him win against them. It was about the only time Rimmon won anything.

He drove the mariners without let, lives depended on it. Veins stretched to bursting, muscles strained to the verge of tearing, concentration etched on every face and sweat oozing from every pore, the men rowed hard to keep the ship afloat. The only let up was to bail water or switch positions. He saw Argonur pause, frown then leave. Rimmon knew that expression; a thought had chased another all the way across his captain’s face into his brain. Rimmon turned back to the business at hand.



Argonur found Jonah curled up like a foetus, asleep. He was enraged. What in the name of all the gods was this fellow doing? An oath left his lips as he lashed out and connected with the ribs of the prone form. The kick would have roused leviathan. Jonah was not, he sprang up in forced wakefulness.
"Are you okay?!" Argonur glared at him.
"Everybody is upside fighting the storm, you are here sleeping. If you do not join them, I will personally toss you off ship."

When Jonah saw the storm, he knew. He contemplated its intensity and the near futile efforts of those fighting it. A small smile rose to his lips, it was a child of knowledge and acceptance. He was a man who had done all he knew to do and then realised the futility of it all. He knew what had to be done, he would tell them.

Argonur spared the oddball by his side only a glance before focusing on the storm. It was growing more and more intense. He looked at the men. Now that everyone was present they needed to cast lots—to determine if anyone there was the reason the sea had risen against them.

The lot picked Jonah.


JayCie © 2017

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