This is a ship.
It wakes to silence so deep the sea seems erased. No waves strike the hull. No gulls call. Even the ropes hang still, refusing to creak. The crew moves as if through muffled cloth, boots pressing soundless against wood. Someone whispers to break the hush. The whisper does not arrive.
At dawn, the sun rises — but no light follows. Only a pale disc climbs above the horizon, throwing no reflection, casting no shadow. The boy holds up his hand and laughs nervously. His fingers remain, but their outline refuses to exist. The woman ties her hair with rope and mutters, “Don’t count what you can’t see.” The cat blinks. Its eyes vanish, reappear, vanish again.
By noon, the logbook opens itself. Page after page is blank. The captain dips his pen in ink and scrawls a line. The letters form, clear as ever, but the moment he looks away they dissolve into whiteness. He tries again. The page eats the words. He closes the book with shaking hands.
The sea beneath is not water. It is absence itself, a hollow flatness where color and motion refuse to gather. Drop a rope, and it simply ends. No splash. No pull. Just gone. The boy claims he hears something below — not a voice, but the shape where a voice should be.
At dusk, lanterns are lit. They give no flame, no glow, no smoke. Yet the crew feels their warmth, the heat brushing cheeks that never shine. The woman hums a tune, but the soundless notes crawl across the deck like invisible ants. The cat hisses at nothing and arches its back against the blank air.
By midnight, the stars are missing. Not cloudy, not hidden. Missing. The sky is an empty ceiling, smooth and whole, denying that it ever bore lights. The boy points upward. The woman shakes her head. The captain writes a single word on the mast: Gone. The letters fade at once, leaving only the grain.
The ship groans. Not a sound — a feeling, a pressure in the ribs like laughter remembered. It sails on, refusing explanation, carrying its crew through a night that will not echo them back.
And it still sails.
