Imagine for a minute that you’re on a ship, a sailing vessel filled with so much gold that the cabins and holds are literally cluttered with the stuff there is so much of it. The place is a real mess. You can barely get to the maps because of all the gold, and you lost your compass weeks ago when the monkey slipped it from your pocket and then dropped it somewhere in one of the piles as you chased him around the cabin. You can’t even find the monkey there is so much gold.
You call in the crew and start handing out the orders. The ship is to be tidied up, this instant. You run a tight ship, you tell the crew. This is completely unacceptable, you say, pointing around the room. A disgrace, a shame to sailing men everywhere, and certainly no way to live. Gold be damned, you say, we will set this mess to order and any man who thinks differently can take it up with the bottom of the sea.
The men stare back at you, slouched around here and there on piles of the gold. They would normally stand at attention, but there is no room because of all the gold. Things have really gotten out of hand.
And keep an eye out for my compass, you say, telling them that you stole it from your father when you were but a wee lad and it means a great deal to you, which is an outright lie but makes for a more interesting story then telling them that some West Indies peddler swindled you back in your early days and that now the monkey has gone and made the truth worse by stealing the damned overpriced compass right out of your pocket. No, there’s no harm in a captain telling a good lie now and again, especially if he’s recently been bested by a fool cabin monkey.
Damn it all, you think, you don’t have to tell this ragtag bunch of sailors anything. You’re the captain of this ship, you remind yourself, not them.
Aye, aye, Captain, they say, and get to it. As crews go, they’re a decent lot, following your orders most of the time. Some captains would demand more of their crew, but for you it’s enough. The sailing is all it’s ever been about, not the control or the ordering around of men. For you it’s the open air and that feeling in the pit of your stomach that you’re somewhere, but never anywhere in particular. For you it’s the swell of the ocean under your feet, rather then the uneasy solidness of some stale port city. It isn’t even about the gold you think as you watch the men shuffling around with it by the armload, moving it from one part of the ship to another, trying to straighten up. No, they’re good men, most of the time. It’s the gold that’s the problem. Always in the way of everything.
And shout out if you see the monkey, you tell them, your hand resting on the empty pocket. That fool creature and I have a bit of unfinished business, you tell them. That we do.