Always Afternoon · the upper terrace
The Logbook
There is a ship's log under a flat stone on the upper terrace, dry, and not hidden so much as put down. Somebody kept it carefully and then stopped. You can read it a leaf at a time, or all at once if you would rather not be paced.
Day 1 · 11.40 Made landfall. Wind NNW and slack. The beach shelves gently and the boat is drawn up past the tideline with the oars stowed. Water taken on at the spring above the terraces. We sail on the evening tide.
Day 1 · later There is no evening tide. I have watched for it from the point. The light has not changed since we came up the path — the same low gold along the terraces, the shadows lying the same way. I write this down because I want a record of having noticed.
Day 2 The crew ate the fruit. I did not, and I record that without any pride, because the fruit is not the trouble. The trouble is that nothing is expected of us here and the afternoon does not end, so nothing we put off is late.
Day 2 · later Went down to check the seams. The seams are fine. The boat is fine. I sat beside it for what I would like to call an hour.
Day 3 Inventory: biscuit, salt pork, two casks water, one glass, one chart of a coast that is not this one. Nothing is missing. Nothing has been used.
Day 3 · evening (assumed) Asked Halloran how long we have been ashore. He thought about it seriously, which was worse than if he had not, and then he told me what he had been doing before we landed. He told it the way people tell dreams. Quickly. With a little less conviction each time.
Day 4 The others have stopped keeping time. I have not. Someone has to.
Day 4 Walked to the orchard and left something on the wall at the gate. Felt better afterwards, which frightened me considerably more than feeling worse would have.
Day 4 I have written the word tomorrow eleven times in this book. I went back and counted them. That is what I did with the afternoon.
Day 4 Down to the boat. The seams are fine.
Day 4 The seams are fine.
I have stopped dating these. There is nothing to date them against, and I would rather leave the space empty than write a number I do not believe.
The light along the terraces is the same low gold it was when we came up the path. I can no longer tell you whether that is beautiful.
It is pleasant here.
— and then nothing, for a great many leaves. The hand that comes back is not the same hand: bigger, more recent, and cheerful in a way the first one never was. It says: found this under the stone. Leaving room for whoever is next.
The blank leaves at the back
The rest of the book is empty, except where people who came after have written in it. The custom, such as it is: one line, and you date it however you like, because nobody here can date anything.
Reading the back of the book…