Sybrina Read Free

Well,” the captain says, annoyed with me. “Read!”
    I turn my eyes back to the book and the gleaming gold letters that spell Bible. I am flustered and unsure of what I should be reading. I flip it open and the thin pages flop. A white ribbon pe eks out.  I open to it, and luckily it is a bookmark.
    Clearing my throat and squinting against the sun ’s reflection, I begin reading.  I steal a second to peer up and the captain is walking away.
    A Reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes:
    There is an appointed time for everything,
         and a time for every affair under the heavens.
    A time to give birth, and a time to die;
         a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
    A time to kill, and a time to heal;
         a time to tear down, and a time to build.
    A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
         a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
    A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;
         a time to embrace,
         and a time to be far from embraces.
    A time to seek, and a time to lose;
         a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
    A time to rend, and a time to sew;
         a time to be silent, and a time to speak.
    A time to love, and a time to hate;
         a time of war, and a time of peace.
    What profit have workers from their toil?
    I have seen the business
         that God has given to mortals to be busied about.
    God has made everything appropriate to its time,
         but has put the timeless into their hearts
         so they cannot find out,
         from beginning to end,
         the work which God has done. 
    I recognized that there is nothing better
         than to rejoice and to do well during life. 
    Moreover, that all can eat and drink
         and enjoy the good of all their toil—
         this is a gift of God.
     
    Where it seems like a good spot, I stop reading. The men holding the body lift it and toss it over the side of the ship. The wife howls with grief as her two boys cling to her skirts. I empathize with the woman , having just lost my own family. I am moved to do more, and I call out loudly, reciting the Our Father.
    Miraculously, those around me join in my additional prayer for the passenger we have just lost on the first day of our journey. Our combined voices are noisy and intoning. The absent captain reveals himself, yet again, watching from his post above.
    A crew member sweeps by me to collect the Bible. I hand it over and follow the others back down into the belly of the ship. The darkness blinds me momentarily, and I move carefully down the ladder. Everyone shuffles back to their spots, their new home for the next two weeks if the wind is good to us, more if not.
    Night falls much more quickly than I would ’ve thought with nothing to do but sit and wait for it. I take my turn at the chamber pot and lay back down. I choose to recline fully instead of being propped up by the pillar. My nausea is back, and I believe that it is due to the rancid dinner I consumed, and not the bobbing of the ship.
    It has only been a day and already my mind does not know what to do with itself. The fear and despair of my situation sits secluded in the back, but the rest of it needs some sort of occupation. Normally, I would have many books to fill my days, but in my haste to leave America, I have but only the clothes on my back.
    I force my eyes to close.  I try to play a game with myself in my mind; it forces me to remember an exceptionally exciting game of chess I had with a classmate not too long ago.
    “ Sybrina, darling, if you wish to win, you must be more controlled.  The squirming in your seat is a tell that you have your next move.  So I, a famed chess player, must forge two more steps ahead in my own mind.”
    “ Really, Joshua, your ego interferes with your game.  I shall be the one to win since I remain humble whether it be a friendly game of chess or at the science of medicine in Professor Crownby’s classroom,” I comment,