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The sky is pink. Coming or going?
Ed used to be able to tell. Something about the shade of pink, the feel of it, gives it away: the rosy puckered air during sunrise, the musky cool weight of sunset. He lobs his head further to the side from where he’s lying on the floor, tries to see more of the sky out of the ripped shade of the window. His view is only a sliver more than it was before, and he still can’t tell. He could get up. He could get up and walk over to the window to get a good look, smell the air, and watch the clouds. He would know instantly where in time he is. He wills his body to roll to the side, to follow his head. He wills his hands to push up under him. He wills any of his muscles to do any of the movements that would lead to him getting up. Nothing. He sighs.
It’s probably best this way. Time has become a flat circle, meaningless. Don’t need to know what time it is when there’s a ship to raid, or when his body starts twitching and itching for more rhino horn, or when Izzy comes in with some inane problem to solve. Don’t need to know what time it is for any of that. He eats when someone brings him food and bathes when he can’t stand the smell of himself. He sleeps when the booze finally takes him and wakes when the booze gives him back.
Speaking of booze, he gropes the space around his head in search of the most recent bottle. He hears a clatter and his whole body tenses. He rolls over as quickly as he can, his stomach sloshing and threatening to regurgitate its contents into his throat. He swallows and reaches out before his eyes can focus…thank god.
He picks up St- the groom wedding cake topper. He’d briefly forgotten it was sitting above his head alongside the bride and the booze. He checks it for damage: nothing. Nothing except the well-worn and black smudged face and shoulder, but that was there before. He flops the rest of the way onto his stomach and reaches for the bride. He winces as he looks at her. At him.
That was a low night.
He had found some paints during yesterday’s raid and managed to sneak them back to the Revenge without anyone noticing. (Briefly, he thinks that narrows it down: it must be sunrise, because yesterday was the raid and yesterday he painted the bride; except it doesn’t narrow it down because he also thinks that he may have slept before he did the painting, so it could also be sunset. But then he remembers that he doesn’t care, and wills his brain to stop trying to situate his body in time.) He decided to paint the bride brown and black. He thought if he did he could see how ridiculous it looked, that it would help him purge the thoughts he had about– about that, about him. Shockingly, it hadn’t. He liked what she looked like, what he looked like. They fit together, the groom and the bride, even more so after he had painted her, Ed thinks. Both of them pretty in their own way, complimenting and complementing each other. For a brief moment Ed had felt…something. Something beyond the sorrow and anguish. The feeling was muffled, the way a cry is muffled when it’s wailed into a pillow. Ed felt his mind try to reach for the feeling, try to hold it and study it. But as quickly as it had appeared, it floated away, into the void. The sorrow and anguish returned shortly after, and Ed forgot how to reach.
How do I get there, Ed thinks. Only he doesn’t so much think those words as he tries to imagine where there is: a life, a gentler one, filled with ease, mundanity, and simple comforts. It all felt so real, so possible, with Stede. A life of leisure, tea in teacups, folding stuff…Ed really thought that life could be his. And he wanted it, is the thing. It wasn’t something that he happened into and enjoyed. His time with Stede had shown him a deep unexamined desire, the desire for a life on land, for linen shirts and cotton breeches, for menial tasks becoming rituals, holy, even. It felt like a calling, like every point in his body had suddenly aligned and started working in tandem. Not only could he want fine, soft things, but he could have them, maybe even deserve them.
Ed strains his neck to the window again without really thinking. He can’t see it much better from this angle, but he notices that the pink is changing. It’s mutating into whatever time is going to happen after the pink. Ed still can’t tell (refuses to tell). Pink marbling into blue and yellow is sunrise; it’s cute, it’s wistful, nostalgic, even. It’s pink like hope. The blue and yellow always follow the pink, but still feel unexpected, like the sky should stay pink forever. The transition is slow, seamless, and shocking. All of a sudden the pink isn’t there. It’s not a sunrise anymore, it’s the day: bright, revealing, and inevitable. The pink at sunset spreads out, relaxes, stretches, before huddling down into the deep blue-black-grey of the night. The pink disappears easily, it hastily follows the sun over the horizon, like it wants to escape the night sky, like it doesn’t want the stars to see what it’s becoming. That pink is gone as quick as it appears.
Ed sets the groom and bride on the window sill, watches them stand tall and proud as the ship sways and rocks with the roll of the sea. They break Ed’s heart again, the two of them together. He waits for a big wave to rock the ship and knock them over, plunge them into the sea, or crash them on the floor of the cabin so they shatter. The wave doesn’t come, they continue standing, and Ed continues watching.
The sky behind them changes colour. It’s sunrise. The pink is waking up; there’s a balmy bright yellow seeping in, and suddenly Ed can’t stand it. He can’t stand the thought of another day starting, another day at sea, another day scouring, scrambling for some kind of purpose. He doesn’t want to wish or hope anymore. His head feels heavy and aches with the repeating cycle of what-ifs. He needs something to happen, something to change. He shuffles up against the window, looks past the wedding toppers out to the ocean shifting beneath the ship. He puts his hand in front of the groom, in front of Stede. His heart drops deep into his chest and his body tenses as he taps Stede to throw him off balance. He falls silently into the water. There’s a rush of feeling that shoots down Ed’s spine, though he’s not sure what it is, can’t categorize it, but something inside him wakes up. He takes one last look at the bride, at himself, and taps her as well. She falls silently, too. No noise, no disruption, no fuss. No evidence of either of them.
❖
The sky is pink. Coming or going, Ed thinks, even though he already knows.
He can see the northeast sky from their window. The trees are silhouetted in the pink; no leaves on the branches yet, but there’s buds, the promise of leaves, hope.
It’s sunrise. The pink is wishful and glossy. The colour carries on the wind and coats the trees as it rustles softly through them. Ed feels the breeze on his face, feels the pink settle on his cheeks, his shoulders. It’s cool, and causes a cascade of goosebumps across his arms, contrasted deliciously by the warm body at his side. The pink settles on Stede as well, in his blond hair, on his broad back, and Ed smiles.
Stede is on his stomach pushed right up along Ed’s side, as close as he can get without actually crawling under Ed’s skin, his head pillowed on Ed’s arm. There’s sweat pooling between them and Ed is losing feeling to his arm. He could wake Stede. He could run his hand across his back, mingle it with the freckles and the scars, with the pink of Stede’s skin and the pink of the sky. Stede would rouse in slow motion, inhale deeply, rise up on his forearms, and turn his head to open his eyes as he looks at Ed. Ed would smile at him and Stede would smile back. Maybe they would mumble a few sleepy words, maybe Ed would kiss him and taste the pink on his lips. Ed smiles to himself. Maybe.
There’s probably a handful of minutes before the pink will start mixing with the yellow and the blue as the day unfolds. It’s still early spring, so Ed knows the sun won’t shine directly through the window; the yellow will crawl in slowly, slow enough that they won’t notice until it’s already here, and the blue will fill the window and illuminate the trees one bud at a time. By then they'll be properly awake, dressed, and fed. The day will continue on, and there will be tasks to do and people to see. For now, Ed lays with Stede and the pink sky.
Coming or going?
Staying.