Mona’s maritime diary: 17

8/11/2016, 10:03 hrs. Sunny intervals, 4 degrees Celsius, light Westerly breeze
(7 miles per hour)

It’s a beautiful, sunny November morning. Between shade
and light, I imagine Scheherazade telling her stories. I hear
her voice, see her face in the shadows of the Sultan’s palace.
Every night, until dawn, Scheherazade stays alive through storytelling
alone. Thousand and one nights. Scheherazade stays alive, the Sultan
falls in love with her, marries her. I think of her, as I watch the line
separating the shadows from the light, splitting this river into two. I think of her,
because I feel she could be my light, my alter-ego. And I, her shade.
Like Sheherazade, I am alive through storytelling alone; only you know this.
And I smile… I know, because of her I no longer live my life in the shadows.
I am no longer afraid. For far too long I have been standing by, wrapped
in my own sorrow, waiting. For something. Folding my grief. Surrounded
by the ghosts of my future. And I understand this. I understand that our love
lives, breaths daily on the borderline, on the very fine line that separates
the shade from the light shining so brightly on this river. I am shade,
you are light. Scheherazade and the Sultan.