Ghost boats

Here is where they drifted to the shore. Three boats beaten and wrecked by the unforgiving waves of the lake forcing through a belt of hyacinth. On a cold afternoon when everyone was expecting no visitors to this lost island. 

You can’t believe it. Nobody could believe it. Empty boats following each other closely, their sails torn and ripped apart like ghost clothes. They came through that creek, from the most dreaded part of the lake where the waters were blue and turbulent all through the year. Fishermen never go that side. Yet the three boats just emerged from between cliffs. One minute the lake was clear and children were running on the shore spraying water over women bent over stacks upon stacks of dirty clothes. The next minute everyone was looking in disbelief as old boats trembled in the wind.

The first person to spot them stood here. On this stone. A young boy. Holding his fists up against his eyes like binoculars trying to make sense of the mystery. The thing is, fishermen don’t come back in the afternoon like that. They always come early in the morning when the lake is warm and smoke is shimmering from the grass-thatched homes they lived in. And even then, they never come from that creek, nobody goes under those cliffs.

I will tell you a story about those cliffs. A story that our forefathers handed to us like a doctrine. One day greed got into a fisherman and he decided to sail to the waters on the East side of the island. He thought he could double or triple his catch over there. People watched him lower his sail to defy the wind that was heading west. Upon reaching the cliffs, a hungry swirling wave cut his boat right in halves and sucked it to the bottom of the Lake, right in front of the shaken onlookers. Since that day, the forefathers agreed that someone could fish any waters he wanted to, but the Eastern cliffs were never to be visited. And so it stayed.

Yet these three ghostly boats came right through those cliffs. The sails were reduced to patches of washed cloth that let wind ripple through without a fight. As they drifted ashore, the onlookers dropped everything they were doing to scan the arriving boats for any sailors. Nobody was in. Or so they thought. Nobody had ever seen boats sail all by themselves in such an orderly manner before.

The colors on them had been long washed. The men arrived to the shore to see for themselves. The island was so small that everyone who resided in there could assemble at the shore all at once. The men formed the front of the line, children stood in the middle and women formed the rear. Everyone was craning their necks to see the boats. 

Look at that boat. The small one nodding to the sweeping wave, they were all that size. A boat that size should leave the shore with at least four sailors on board, at most eight. We are talking about three boats here. That’s between twelve to twenty-four people. Later in the night, the ruoth of this island called an emergency meeting.

The meeting was supposed to ascertain that we were not missing anybody. Men came to the hut under the oak tree where women scaled fish by day. I sat here, carrying a spirit lamp with the flame between my palms. Some of us carried lanterns that were used when fishing sardines. It was a cold night so we all wrapped in our blankets. Nobody went fishing that night. Nobody would ever set sail into the lake with such a mysterious thing happening. 

Do you know why nobody goes to the Lake when there are mysterious things going on? Our forefathers believed that the Lake had a soul just like me and you. They said sometimes the Lake got annoyed and when her anger piled up it struck. One of the things that the spirits of the lake hated was deceit and greed. Men of the Lakeside needed to know that. They needed to live by that. Sometimes defiant men went missing. Boats capsized. Angry winds tore down sails and swept fishing nets into the most turbulent parts of the lake. 

The Lake never brought back her captives. Anything that went to the bottom was never seen again. We have learnt to never go after what the lake has taken. As we say around here, it is like going to war with the spirits. Do you understand how much that weighs?

In that night’s meeting, we discovered that three men were missing. Your father was one of them. He was not supposed to be among the people going fishing the previous night. I had suspected that he wasn’t around because we talked much. You dad and I were the closest of friends. However he never disclosed to me that he wanted to go anywhere during that time. If he went fishing, all the men would know. If he took the passenger boat to the mainland, all the women who brought food from town would know. We had no idea what to make of this. 

The other two men were younger men who only married a few months back. Just like your father, they had a good heart. The laughed with children and threw them in the air. I remember how much he loved you. He looked for you all over the island when we returned from the Lake. Always. He would never eat your mother’s fish before he sees you. He said you would be someone so great. I don’t know how he knew that but here you are looking all good and rich. Everyone knows you. Your TV job has you flying all over the world. Someone wouldn’t know this small island with never ending mysteries raised you. 

The three boats were anchored against a log at the shore. Nobody was supposed to touch anything left in them until the next morning. Nobody slept. The whole island was awake as the devil. Prayerful men prayed. Women mourned their missing. Your mother said your dad had been so secretive the last few days before his disappearance. He had been closing himself inside his hut. Perhaps he was worrying about the tough times. We had been attacked by a belt of hyacinth and fishing was almost impossible. The lake’s clear water was now buried under green twigs and it would be so for months. He had told me over beer that he was thinking of going east. I told him to spit those words out of his mouth. He did. He never mentioned that again. 

When those ghostly boats appeared here, I had not seen your father at the drinking parlor for three days. That was unusual. I had this heavy cloud over my head that something had happened. The next morning after the night meeting, men raided the boats turning everything inside out. Wallets, bags, bottles and neatly folded extra clothes. Your mother noticed the clothes she had folded with her own hands. A red vest with whites spots on it and a trouser with many pockets. The other boats had nothing that could identify anyone. Just a stone with pores that most people owned and used to scrub the soles of their feet. 

Boats don’t sink and return to the shore. Some rumor millers had it that the crew had been thrown off while going through creek. How then did the boats come ashore? They should have been wrecked too if that was the case. Others said that the three must have tried to swim back when a storm rocked them. I believe with the passing of time that your dad must have chosen to explore the east alongside the two young men. I knew that man. He would do anything for his family. He once told me he would run into a charging wave if he was to save his wife and son. You were lucky to have that man as your father. 

Somehow I feel proud to see you turning out so well. You remind me a lot about your father. I hope we can one day get to understand what really happened to him. I am glad you came back here after all those years. A man has to come home at some point. This is where your mother buried your umbilical cord. This is where we buried the banana trunk in your father’s place. You bathed right on top of that stone and scrubbed your tiny feet here on this one.

‍