I look at the shadow of the Sarpedon’s conning tower, rippling through the waves like a boxy, black sail, its periscopes and radar like spikes on a war helm. Because it hurts my mind to stare at the illuminated cloud above—the Flashback Borealis, as they call it—which hangs over Seattle like a shroud, for very long, I have again diverted my eyes; this time to the water—the dark, roiling, whitecapped water—which, reflecting the cloud’s ephemeral light, has become the color of wine, the color of blood.
Atop the sail are three shadowy figures: a tall, thin man in a pea coat and captain’s hat (Captain O’Neil), a shorter form with long, windswept hair (Beth), and yet another—bearing what is called in Korea the 2-block haircut—a figure so short that only her head is visible.
A figure, I suppos
