The figurehead of a late medieval carrack washed up on the beach near my home. I was on my morning jog when I saw what I believed to be a young man asleep or dead in the sand. There were crabs on his face, in his beard, and I was afraid his eyes would be dark sea caverns to haunt my soul until the end of time. But my curiosity conquered my fear.
His eyes were the color of bleached wood. They were, in fact, wood. But somehow, they carried more life in them than I had ever weighed in my own reflection; more kindness than my neighbor’s glimpses over the fence; more warmth in their oak than in the gazes of my lovers.
It was from the 15th century, the maritime archaeologists determined, the same age as Ivan the Great or Leonardo da Vinci. I tried to invoke the unwritten law of finders keepers, but the Ministry of Culture took him away. Now, under glass, and far from the sea, he is entombed in his atmosphere-controlled casket. On a pedestal, next to the breech-loading swivel guns, he stares in eternity at rusty devices that may have taken him down. Downstairs, in the natural history exhibit, a giant squid suspended on steel cables longs to embrace its lover. Its tentacles span ten meters, but they have no hope of reaching what is theirs.
