The Arabian Gulf
02:30
Aft Smoke Break, USS Thorn (at sea)

	It's pitch black out.  It's darker than the deepest cave.  Stars sprinkle
the sky, brighter than I've ever seen them. Hale-Bopp lights the night sky
like a shining powder puff above.  The sea is dead calm and the ship lies
dead in the water.  The thrum of turbine engines is subconcious--yet
permeates everything.  I  light a cigarette, blue flame arcs towards the
tip and flares red.  In the distance, yellow fire can be seen on the
horizon.  I've seen them before, billowing clouds of fire, oil platforms.
They flicker like candles set in a faraway window.  
	A phantom green luminescence is left in the wake of the ship as her
engines slowly come to life.  You can hear the twin screws churning water
and the wind begins to pick up.  It is a hot, dry wind.  Full of sand and
mystery.
	The fantail is deserted at this hour and I feel an overwhelming sense of
being the last person on Earth.  It is a lonely feeling.
	I see and feel these things and yet, I am in a different place.  Whether I
am in Germany or South America, my imagination haunts me with stories to
tell, grand and epic tales.  Stories worthy of Milton, Lovecraft, Tolkien
and Asimov.  The stories do not burden me, but they yearn to be told.  Like
a caged bird that wishes to be set free.  And as I write, they come back to
me in fragments--taunting me to write more and at the same time, teasing me
with their grandeur.  Writing, I have discovered, more than anything in the
world, is an escape.

	

--------------
Sean
Maxwell Edison, Majoring In Medicine
(Does that mean I get to play doctor?)