The 2020

Photographs by HENRY DANNER

We were passengers forced to jump into the water when our ship, the 2020, after years of creaking, cracked in half and sank down into the darkness. The ship was long thought to be beautiful. For it gleamed in the sunlight. And it gleamed in the moonlight. It throbbed like a beacon, could be seen across great distances. And since it was like a beacon it was taken for a beacon.

But the ship was never beautiful. Where there should have been wood there was gold and where there could have been gold there were guns. It was ill-gotten, falsified, and much like it housed every imaginable person it also housed every imaginable horror. Yes, in a certain light it could pass for beautiful but it was the water that was beautiful. It was the water that was part of the natural course of things. Another natural course of things was the fate of ships that mistook themselves for water much like our ship had done.

It traveled without purpose aside from the purpose of being itself, which was considered enough of a purpose by both those who claimed to own the ship and those who claimed to steer it. And on it went, without a sail or engine, simply being suggested forward by what was commonly called the will of God, which was as white as the clouds and as clear as the wind. It has been claimed that this God is endless in his power. Thus, he is everywhere. Thus, in being unknown he is known. Thus, he guides the ship.

Therefore, the wreck under our feet is still guided by him. For what he guides never falters. And what he touches never breaks.

Some of the people in the water are actually saying this.

They had been told this and so they say this. “Our ship spins away from us but our God is here, and our God is our ship, so we are safe here with him.” They yell now over the waves as their mouths fill with water. Some thrash, cough, and sink. Some see the others coughing and sinking and nevertheless start up with the yelling again: “Our ship spins away from us but our God is here, and our God is our ship, so we are safe here with him.”

In the distance, the captain clings to a slick chunk of driftwood and can hear them. He doesn’t want to hear them and wishes they were dead. He doesn’t want to hear anyone and wishes they were all dead. In their death, he reasons, he would live. For knowing they had died would surely mean that he had survived and in surviving he would be seen as having been right all along; that the ship is the most beautiful ship that there ever was and is perfect as it is. He will find another ship, like his father did. He is sure of this. He will find another ship and that ship will pull his ship out of the water and it will be perfect as it is and he will set off again through the waters with what survivors are left and why can’t everyone see that and know that that’s fine?

The ship, after all, had been broken before. It never quite sank, but it had been broken. That was many captains ago and not this captain’s fault at all, this captain thought.

Amid the chaos in the water, the most chaos is where the captain is. He thrashes like he’s never seen water before. He is at the center of a circle of trusted people who also embraced whatever floats and therefore keeps them afloat. They yell across the water to each other, to the captain, to the sky.

Those who yelled “Our ship spins away from us but our God is here, and our God is our ship, so...