after ahab put his hand in the sperm bucket (a jest at first, and then a remembering)
and ishmael's fingers brushed and
ahab's heart slowed for a time
lost in that white pearl sea
whispering liquid, stopping time
after, ahab still tied himself to the mast, and stared at the horizon
but it was the pearl of the sky that called him, more and more
not distracted him - he would see the whale in his soul before he'd miss him in the water - but rested that soul
the soul preparing for the whale
one day the white whale swam right in
into the pearl on the horizon
it was morning. ahab shouted to slow, to stop.
the pequod sat for a long time in the white hazy sun and timid blue. men became curious and worked more slowly. the whale came closer.
the whale didn't look angry. he just looked like a whale. ahab saw the scars, and the lances. the whale's eye was placid. he had never seen so still a ship. it was not a ship anymore, since it was not moving him, rushing him, hurting him. it was something else.
ahab asked to be let down from the mast and had the boat lowered. he was helped in. men rowed, spooked men who felt close to death. the boat bumped against the whale's tremendous flank. the whale was still, feeling no more than the brush of a wing on his back.
ahab ordered the boat to stay. the men worked the oars to keep them by the flank. stubb lit his pipe. the smoke smelled like nantucket, like home.
the boat didn't move away from the whale for a long time. finally ahab stood awkwardly and leaned back from the boat, trying to lean against the whale. the whale didn't react, because he felt it only as another brush of the wing.
ahab felt the cool and the warm, the soft and the hard, the weight and the lightness of the whale. he tasted salt, he smelled the sea. he felt the sun on his face, and the damp on his back.
suddenly the whale began to move. it was sounding time. the whale needed to go down again, to eat, to sleep, to swim, to live, to be.
ahab put his one foot on the edge of the unsteady boat while his men looked alarmed. now he was teetering between the boat and the slowly moving whale, on one foot. the space between boat and whale became a slit, a crevice and then a chasm. all was pearl and milky foam beneath.
nay, said ahab, as the men reached for oars, to keep the boat alongside
nay
he slipped into the milk of the sea
down the warm breast of the leviathan
his last sight was the sun
she released him from any promise
the whale sounded
