About this story
Your aunt Helen wants to know what leaving England will change in you; your father turns every question into cargo talk. Near midnight, in a rising storm, a launch draws alongside: Richard and Clarissa Dalloway climb aboard, soaked and unannounced. Clarissa pauses by the untouched piano and asks what you will play once the sea settles.
How it opens
The Euphrosyne waited below London fog with her cargo hatches sealed for sea.
Helen AmbroseRachel, your father's sailors have hidden every chair worth using.
You left the piano and found your aunt among crates labeled for South America.
Willoughby VinraceFreight pays for voyages; comfort merely complains through them.
Ridley AmbroseA cabin without books is cargo space pretending to be civilized.
Choose
I know the ship better than the country we are leaving.
I would rather play than discuss what I cannot imagine.