In the hours before dawn, in the strange mist, Rostam casts his line into the water. The ship is never silent -- like a living thing, it creaks and groans at all hours -- but now, at least, there is something like peace. He teases the fishing line with his fingers, staring out at nothing. At that damn fog, always encroaching, always wet, like a damp hand on the back of his neck. He drifts, like the ship, in a sort of waking doze.
Years ago, he had become separated from a patrol. Then it had been sand blinding him, not mist, but there was the same sense of fragmentary awareness, as though a part of him had been untethered. He had wandered along the crest of a dune, sometimes falling onto its soft lee, sometimes onto the hard windblown side. He had been found, rescued. Had been inserted back into the mechanisms of daily life.
He still sometimes dreamed of the awful chasm of loneliness that had consumed him, in the wind and sand.
"This is not then," he murmurs aloud, earning an odd look from a passing crewman. He reels in the line, checks the bait. Presses the ball of his thumb against the bone hook, feels the prick. There is something reassuring in the everyday sting, something which seeks to anchor him to a wider world. As the other passengers wake, he knows he will need to smile, tell jokes, reassure them. Need to be noisy, boastful, certain, friendly.
Now, in the all-encompassing night of mist, he lets himself be afraid. He begins to tremble, grasping the railing, nearly losing his fishing pole over the side. Feels his knees unjoint, as though the strings holding him up have all been severed. He wants to cry. He wants to pray.
Rostam lets the fear rampage through him, making no attempt to control himself, to fight the force of the emotion. It would be insane not to be afraid, he tells himself. And in welcoming the fear, he feels it diminish. Like a wave, water draining from the scuppers of a ship, it releases its hold and slips away. Sighing, Rostam turns and looks up at what he can see of the sky.
He tries on a grin. It will be dawn soon.