"My mates are on their way."
[[I looked around.]]We were the only ones in the bar.
[[There was a weird pause.]]
[["Your mates?" I asked.]]I picked this particular bar because it was usually empty around now.
[["Your mates?" I asked.]] "They'll be here any minute," he said. It didn't sound like a threat, but something about his tone was... off.
[["Sorry," I mumbled, "I don't think we've met."]]
[[I waited.]]He finished his drink and rummaged around behind the bar for more. "We just did."
More silence.
[[I was determined to wait him out on this one.]]"Gulliver," I said.
He didn't say anything. I'm not sure what I expected.
[["So, are you from around here?" I asked.]]It was like he woke up all of a sudden. "No," he said, and grinned at me. "No, I just came in."
Then he squeezed out his shirt sleeve onto the bar, leaving a little puddle, and laughed some more.
I didn't really get the joke at first.
[["You SWAM here?"]]He laughed harder. "You could say that! You could say that." He kept laughing.
[[I didn't know what to say.]]"Let's just say we hit some rough seas. Don't worry about me, though. I messaged my shipmates. They'll be along soon enough."
His voice trailed off. Something changed again.
[["You're a sailor, then? Seven seas, all that good stuff?"]]There it was again. "Aye," he grinned. "It's not for everyone, but it's all I've ever known and all I've ever loved." He paused, but with purpose this time.
[[He squinted at me and asked, "Have you ever been to the glaciers?"]]
[[He rubbed at a scar on his beak and almost to himself said, "How much do you know about the jungle?"]]I shook my head. Tried to play it cool like how I probably could have but just hadn't yet. I don't know if it worked.
"They're impossible," he said. "Ice as far as you can see in every direction. Cracks, these huge cracks a hundred feet deep that can swallow a gull in one go. And nothing - no food, no shelter. No animals. No trees."
[[He paused.]]I shrugged. "Lots of trees, right? Lots of bugs?" I couldn't tell if he heard me.
"Back before the airports," he began, "the only way in was by boat. There was me and my mates, chartered by a company man. Cook? Nook? Something like that. Off to the wilderness. The real wilderness, now. Not like the woods here."
He drained the rest of his glass.
[["He said he was going to make a new town."]]Eventually, something changed. He shifted on his barstool, and gave me the strangest look. Then he said, "I'm none ulliver than Gulliver."
[[That was a weird thing to say by any measure.]]He finished his drink. The waves outside did their thing.
I wasn't sure if this was part of the game or if he was just being stubborn. Or if I was just being stubborn.
[[I was determined to wait him out on this one.]] "It's been years, mind you." Another pause. "They're going away now. But back then... well, it was different.
"My mates and I, we were on a survey. See, someone's got to sail up and down the coast of these places and see what's changing. It's not like the beach here. The glaciers are always moving, so the shipping lanes are always moving. So our job is to go figure out where the lane is now."
I stirred the half-melted ice cubes around the bottom of my glass.
[["Then we got the SOS."]]"I'll get to that in a minute. The thing about sailing the glaciers is you can't be out there that long. You don't want to run out of food, obviously, or fuel. But it's the seasons, and how long it takes to sail there.
"So, you understand, then, it's a quick job. Sail in, map out the new lanes, sail out.
[["You stick to the schedule."]]I must have had a look because he got back to the SOS pretty quick.
"Some fool explorers got themselves stranded. The supply caravan was gone for the season already. We usually show up late so our charts will last the winter, but by then we were the last ship in the area.
[["We were the only ones that could help."]][[And then... silence.]]"Not sure how a fella does that. But he had a plan. Him and his two boys seemed to have it all figured out. Not that it mattered. They paid well and they paid on time, and a boat is a business too.
[["So we sailed down the coast, and then headed upriver."]]"We made this trip a few times before. There were mines up that way, iron ore mostly. Comes out in these big nuggets. Gotta get it back to the coast somehow.
"We were none of us ready for what happened though."
[[I finished my drink and waited.]]"We were lucky. I was lucky. Some of my mates took home way bigger souvenirs than this," he said, rubbing the ugly scar under his beak.
"But we got the company man to his camp. We always got the job done, me and my mates. We left him there, in the dark, with nothing but his sons and a bag full of bells to trade with the locals.
[["Never did find out what happened to him."]]And so it went. Adventures and misadventures, tales that twisted and turned like the jungle rivers themselves. I lost track of time. The sun set. The waves did their thing.
"It all changes though," he said.
My drink had been empty for a while.
"These places aren't what they used to be," he mumbled.
[["Not what they used to be."]]On and on he went. Rescues, and failed rescues. Narrow escapes and good luck and bad luck. Looking for sense in the senseless, maybe, this weaving of one thread through all the past ones, but I was mesmerized.
"Anyways," he said, after the sun had set, and the moon was doing its thing. "They're not what they used to be."
I wasn't sure if he was talking about the glaciers.
[["Not what they used to be."]]I looked at my empty glass. "So, your mates," I began, not knowing how to end the question.
Silence. Waves.
"They're on their way," he said. Softer now.
[[Silence. Waves.]]I came back to myself, a little bit at a time.
Came up out of the stories. Came back to the bar. The bar on the beach.
[[The bar by the sea.]]I put a few bells on the empty bar, and pulled on my coat.
"Nice to meet you, Gulliver," I said.
He nodded,
ever so slightly,
and kept his vigil,
and I left him there,
by the sea.
↶↷"My mates are on their way."
I looked around.