Day nine. This is the day we supposed to land in Omororo. Popele don’t seem to notice that we off course. But she is not one for seawater, now that I remember, so she don’t know. The captain and the navigator still shouting at each other, and the crew still have murder in their looks toward me. At this point Sangomin knowing my whereabouts was not my worry. One night I go without sleeping and the one following I set myself that I would roll on some shells and wake myself up before any man pounce me. But this is insufferable and that is no lie. There won’t be any more me by the morning I get to Omororo. If I get to Omororo.
Day ten. I wake up rolling and spread my arms to stop myself. My head spinning mad until I see that it is the ship. My face cold and wet and getting wetter. But I see nothing but dark until the lightning blaze everything white. Then black again and I hear boom crash boom. Black sea, black sky, then white lightning cutting through clouds, and I see the sea, wild and unruly, waves crashing into waves to make a big surge fifty times higher than the ship. And this ship, instead of rising high, sink so low that it feel as we falling through air. We hit the bottom of the wave and ride over, but the wind beat into the side and near pitch us over. Wind lash rain at me. Spirits of sea and spirits of sky doing nasty work. Lightning slash and thunder boom then roll like it will drop out of sky on top of us. Another wave rise like a mountain and rush into us but we climb over, then drop down like we rolling downhill and can’t stop. The sky bellow as it tear itself open. Another wave slam into starboard and twist us around. We roll and scramble. The bow drop under water that rush across the deck all the way to me. I grab the mast. I try to stand, but a wave slam into the port side now and throw me into the air and I flip and flip and grab a rope and hang on until the wind stop flapping like a ribbon. Wind. I hear the rough whisper of it trying to blow anybody off the ship. The bow sink under again, and deck wash soaking me. I hang on to the mast, and only then see men around me, trying to lower the sails, securing the boom, staggering to go belowdecks, running back above deck, shouting into a wind that suck in whatever they say. The wind whispering, howling, screaming, laughing. And this, though it dark, though I keep slipping and falling, though the crew scramble all around me, and though rain keep blurring my sight. The boy cook running up on deck, naked and blank, then walking almost peaceful as the ship thrashing around like caught fish. Nobody see him but I, walking right up to the bowsprit, and when the bow plunge undersea and come up again, he gone. The bow ride over a wave then down again, and again, each time lower and lower, each time us looking that we won’t come back up. The ship lean left, almost flat on the side, and sink down into the water again. The water unruly, in the dark it is mountains rising and falling inside and on top of each other, and white spray that hit us again. One of the crew stagger past me, trying to tie down the second boom, which had come loose and swinging so hard that it soon break off. He look at me, nod, make a run, and white spray sweep him up and fling him off the ship. Black clouds break apart, and thunder drop on us again. Lightning whiten the air and somebody else is at the bow but is not the boy. The ship dip again, slam down into the black as if somebody drop it on ground. I thought the ship would come apart but another wave sweep it up again. That was the first time I wondered if I had any quarrel with the gods of air or sea that I forget. Then a wave rise from beneath we and throw the ship in the air. Another crewman trip and tumble overboard. We land with a crash on a wall of water that pull out quick under us, leaving the ship on nothing. We fall into the dark.
The dark was a wave as big as a mountain. But when wave move in close, to starboard, somebody shout that it is not a wave. Is a fish. A fish as big as this boat when it pull up beside and frighten sailor who up to now act like they see every beast and monster. I thought the fish was as big as the ship until I realize that was only the head. I lean over too low and wind from behind almost kick me off the deck. Almost, if not for the griot, who grab my hand. The quartermaster scream for weapons, but this was a slave ship, not a warship, with no weapon bigger than a spear. He is more worried about this fish ramming into the hull than the storm wrecking us. I try to run to the stern of the ship but trip and slide to it, and see the fish’s fins as far back as the edge of a rice field. It going swallow us alive, say one of the crew, while another scream like a baby. One shout for the cook to bring fire while another ask how you going throw fire on water. In a fucking storm. The fish swerve, knock the ship, and throw everybody off their feet. That bring up the captain screaming about the incompetent crew who fling his ship against rocks. The quartermaster point to the fish as it slam into the ship again. Slack the mainsheets, he say to slow the boat to a stop. A command that he should have give before the storm. The quartermaster yell that now they just sitting and waiting for the fish to ram into them like sea monsters always do, but captain yell back that if he don’t shut up he will put him in chains and have the cook do to him with a pot handle what the quartermaster do to the boy cook. The ship come to as much a stop as it can on raucous sea. One sailor shout that the fish was no longer starboard. Another shout that he see a fin aft, until a gust blow him off the deck into the black. The captain look at me like there be nothing to do but wait on the whim of this storm or the pleasure of this big fish. Behind the ship, the fish rise again, enough of him that to new eyes a great mountain did rise from sea. The fish almost still but for the tail whipping.
“Chipfalambula,” the griot say. “Giant of the rivers, what she doing out in the sea?”
Giant indeed. Wide as the ship. The top half of her is clear as sand, so clear you can almost see through the scales, while the lower half, from her mouth down, as blue as the sea. Eyes so big they pop out of her head like balls. How you know Chipfalambula is a woman? I ask the griot. The men only grow half as big, big enough to go down in two bites, he say, and was about to say more when his voice get lost in gasp. The Chipfalambula open her mouth, a little at first, then so wide that sailor scream that it is about to swallow the ship. The griot walk over to aft and I follow. Inside the mouth darker than night, but from deep come a light, like a lamp, but surely there could be no fire in this storm. The wave rush the floor again and nearly sweep both of us off. The light shine on the hand holding it. A hand! I yell at the griot, who put his hand to his chin. The fish swim in close to the point where it did look like she was about to swallow the ship. Then I see whose hand was holding the light. Popele.
“She beckoning us,” the griot say.