The certainty of the horizon

Esteban is a sailor and before today he had never expressed his feelings towards anyone, for the first time interacting with his inner self analyzing his life as a sailor and as a lone

I think of my mother, alone, abandoned by my father, being carried by the sea to a distant port whose route we do not know, nor the name. She, my mother doesn't know her for sure, she was always in the house and from there she came out little, she said that people are all the same, a bit like sailors. I totally agree. There are many of us who travel the oceans and we all share the same fears. Drowning, not earning, not eating. My mother was a strange woman and I think I took from her my skills as a silent man, my father instead spoke too much and sailed little. My mother gave me the ability to do my own business, to shut me up in total silence. "Work hard and then go home," he told me. A great woman that woman. One day I came back and she was at the hospital, a neighbor there had brought her because she was not well. It lasted two weeks then she died. But she didn't like being in there. He said that the place knew of death before it even cracked, it didn't bring well to stay inside the hospitals, "if you have to die, die at sea or at home". I miss those kind of words. This episode happened a long time ago and I have clear memories only now, I think about it while the boat with which I'm heading off it blows a little bit, the wind strengthens and I speak to myself for the first time in my life. I think I woke up from a long hibernation I didn't know existed.
I would testify this to someone but my sea companion is on the sail intent on doing something, I would usually use a nautical term for this kind of work, but I'm inside my head and there is no need for formalism, "something about sailing" as definition goes more well.

The first time I went to sea was when I was thirteen years old, I untied a rope that tied a small boat and went out to sea alone. That wetwas half a rag for sailing, to me it looked like my whole world. I felt like I was living for the first time, facing the waves that exceeded my ambitions and ousted me as you do with a younger brother, when you get in the way of whining. That's what the sea is to me. A big brother, he takes care of me every now and then. This brother could even kill me at any time. In the secret of my prayers I love him. He took away my father and an uncle that I saw at a Christmas party when I was little, or probably this uncle took away a Spanish lady who always came to our house because she was a widow and my mother passed him the leftovers of the groceries. Of course my mother didn't suspect Uncle Joaquin was going to get caught. That's what that uncle's name was, now I remember well. I should have started talking to myself a long time ago.

We've been at sea for two days looking for fish, we don't know where it really is, because they certainly don't get their heads out of the water. They're always around, like us sailors. My partner and I pull away the nets that have been springing for days and we hope that it comes on that shapeless mass made of so many minnows that move together, I see them gasp poor devils. Once I thought I heard them screaming, then I noticed that my sea partner had broken his ankle slipping on an octopus, he was the one screaming. Since that day he's been limping and I have to help him twice as much.
We sailors are good people, we have a blue heart and our eyes are always swollen with joy. The sea is always a joy. He's our brother and he can kill us at any time.

My father used to tell me that there's no trust in the sea, and the sooner you get home, the better. I never believed him, for my part I hope to stay in the middle of the sea as long as possible. I wish I could live my whole life undulating and crying. When you cry in the middle of the sea the tears know nothing, it's the exact same thing as when it rains and you're half submerged. In the middle of the sea the tears are worth nothing but a single moment of joy is worth a thousand words never spoken.
The moment I was most afraid? I have to think about it because I don't have a clear idea. Maybe when I saw a shark standing near the boat. I expected him to attack us and do anything to catch us, maybe jump in and pull fins in our faces. No, he wailed just like a little dog in the middle of his dark blue lawn. There was good weather that day and I could see all the streaks of his strange skin. I liked to watch it because it had that double tone of color that meant it probably belonged to some breed. His eyes were dark and hard, empty until you thought he was dead, and he's probably a guy like him who ate a lot of sailors and a lot of other garbage in the middle of the sea.

That day my sea companion simply said to me "he's waiting." I was sick, I didn't like waiting, that shark seemed to live in waiting. He waited for one of us to fall off the boat, and then the wait wouldn't be in vain. But probably a shark doesn't know what time is lost, it's been waiting a lifetime.
The wind has become much stronger than before, I like it, it is the raw scream that today we have been waiting for too long, my colleague has now come down and seems to be always anxious about the sails, he believes that if they break we will end badly and that the big sea will turn us up throwing us in the air like fluffs of dust that are slammed from a carpet. We're going to get one of those big wooden shovels that shakes the carpets and we're going to end up in the air and then fall away from anything good the sea can have.

My name is Esteban and I've been a sailor for twenty and more years, my partner Sandoval and I are off the Azzore and this is the first time I speak alone inside me. The return journey will be hard because it pulls an air of tropical storm, I have two more orettes to tell me what I have to and then engage in everyday maneuvers to get home. Two hours I think it's a long time, but when you're alone everything flies away so easily. Practically these are the last hours before I can sit down again fraternizing with my inner Esteban. A good feeling, I don't know why i didn't do it before but I think it also depends a lot on the people around you and the life experiences.
Two weeks ago I met Ida. She is the daughter of a milkman from Ponta Delgada, she is as beautiful as she is desired. Right now I think of her and I remember why I miss my mother, she looks like him. Same eyes, same hands and identical raven hair, very shapithed but so beautiful. Maybe I'm in love. Before her I had never interacted with myself and had never loved. Strange life.

I wish he was here, in the middle of the sea, in my partner's place. It's just me and her, and I could talk to her about my feelings. I could tell you everything, I wouldn't be afraid to brave the wind and tell you what I feel. It would be too great a joy to be able to love her in front of my brother ocean.
He would understand and would not judge my state of mind, But Ida would instead see my heart for what it really is.
"Pray for us boy," Sandoval, my colleague, tells me.
He does not believe in God, I believe in it but more out of fear than out of love. He's an old man, too much to be at sea. The hands know about salt and are cracked enough to hear them creak when holding something. He was lucky he saw his mother die in his own bed, you could distinguish two whole races of sailors. Those who were present and those who were at sea.
We are good people us sailors, we would like to be only present and be able to assist those who love us and gave us life. A life at sea.  I tighten my cap well and put on a yellow windbreaker, if I fall into the sea it will be easier to find myself, but it is likely that they will find me first all those sharks waiting.

Author's Note

I am not a native English speaker and I hope I do not lack any respect for your language