Wingles Voyage

WINGLE

Hello, my name is Wingle and this is the story of how I came to be on this boat.

As a boy, I was never satisfied with my ordinary life. It wasn’t just the physical confines of my town that made me feel trapped and constrained but rather, the predictability of daily life seemed to weigh me down. Even while swimming in the warm waters of the bay my harbour town was built on, or climbing the cliffs in order to tease the sea eagles guarding their nests, or playing rollicking mock warrior games with the rag-tag bunch I called friends, my mind still yearned for something more. I wanted to explore the world, to make discoveries, to make my own stories, to be somehow “more” than my present circumstances presented.

​So, as soon as I was old enough, I set off on an adventure, sailing away to places unknown. The joy I felt was not dimmed by the tears and entreaties of my family and friends who begged me to stay. My eager face was set towards the unknown future and all else was as inconsequential as the ineffectual buzzing of a fly.

I enjoyed being alone on the sea. Finally, I was my own person. Fearless in the face of the unknown.

Well, until the storm that is.

​My little boat was tossed and turned on the waves and me with it, until finally, we both succumbed to the cold, dark embrace of the sea.

​I awoke to the touch of the sun on my back and firm sand beneath my body. I was alive! My fiery throat, raging thirst and aching body told me so. And then I saw them! Strange-looking little people, pointing at me from a distance, whispering in an unknown language. I tried to call out to them, to let them know they had nothing to fear from me and that I needed their help but all I could manage was a croak. Too weak to move, I lay there under the baking sun as more and more of the whispering people came to stare at me. I felt so wretched and ill that tears welled from my eyes and ran down my face, moistening my lips and tongue but doing nothing to alleviate the thirst that was surely going to kill me.

And then it happened. A small shadow fell over me and gently, a hand raised my head and placed a cup of cool, sweet water to me lips. They carried me to their village and placed me in a cool, dark room with as much water as I could drink and platters of sweet fruit, the like of which I had never tasted. Slowly, I recovered under their care.

A few years passed and I learned their language (and some even learnt mine) and was accepted into their way of life. They are a gentle people who live on a small island far away from anywhere known to me. The storm had certainly made sure that my desire to discover the unknown had come to be. They were wary of me for a long time and I’m sure they found me even stranger than I found them, as I was at least aware that our world comprised of different countries with different looking people and cultures. The villagers were ever curious about my homeland, and I spent many hours regaling them with stories of my family, my friends, my town and the way I life I had so eagerly left behind. Aas I talked with them, I saw my previous life through their eyes and I realised all that I once had and now had lost. The role of teacher seemed to be a natural fit for me and, recalling all the lessons of my childhood that I had once suffered through, I now imparted this knowledge to hungry, willing little minds.

As I settled to my new life, a strange thing happened to me. I, who had always hungered to leave my town, who had seen that town as too confining, too predictable, too dull for an adventurer like me, now found myself longing to return to it. To see all the people I so willingly left, to eat all the familiar foods that once jaded my palate, to immerse myself in the steady rhythms of my own home-life became almost overpowering. Such a bitter-sweet lesson to realise that, as my boat was gone and my new island home did not have the means or materials to make a new one, all that I once had was now out of reach.
​
And then came the miracle!
​
One day, a small group of people came to me and started asking about my boat. They wanted me to describe it, draw it, estimate its measurements. They wanted to know how it worked. So, I explained the principles of boatbuilding to them. The need for correct weight and hull surface area. How a boat must be designed to ensure the underwater volume of a hull is distributed in a way that matches the optimal fore and aft centre of gravity of the boat (and occupants and gear) to attain a centre of buoyancy. Boatbuilding was a major trade industry in my homeland, so we all understood the principles of building a variety of sea-craft. For many months, the most popular topic of conversation in the village appeared to concern boats.

I thought they were just interested in learning something new, and they were, but their interest was more than academic!

Recognising how I longed to return home, the villagers had decided to try and build me a boat.
When first told of this I scoffed “You don’t have the right wood from which to build a boat, no iron nails, no tar for pitch – it cannot be done!”

But I was wrong, for this little island held a secret. Every so often, climatic conditions cause a variety of unknown objects to wash up on a far-side beach. One such item was a giant seed pod, as big as two houses. I was told that ten years before, it had come bobbing into the beach, wherein the villagers had dragged it ashore and stored it away in a building as a curiosity. Eventually, interest was lost in its novelty, and it was largely forgotten until someone remembered it. Here it was, the beginning of my journey home.

So, here am I, once again braving the seas in an adventure but this time I’m not alone. Many of my friends were sad to see me go and the farewells were long and touching but many others had caught the thrill of adventure or the thirst for new knowledge and asked to accompany me. I was obviously a much more inspiring teacher than I thought but truth to tell, I was happy for their company, these people who had saved a stranger, embraced him in their lives and now trusted their care to him in this brave adventure.

Now, let me introduce my fellow adventurers to you.