Drifting

It had already been a long day. Another two hour delay was met with laughter - the whole adventure turned to farce early in the trip and the crew realized the futility of anger in the face of nature.

"I could swim there faster," a voice growled in the cramped cabin.

"My Grandma could swim there faster," another voice added.

"Yeah, but how would she pull the load?" a final voice, the Captain's, completed the trio.

"Heh, keep the rope in her dentures. Use her tits as floaties. Scare all the traffic out of the lane," the first voice speculated.

"Don't talk about my Grandma that way," the second voice, a younger man, protested through a smirk. "She's dead."

"Still faster than this fuckin' tub," the first man growled. After a moment of silence passed between the three, he lit a cigarette.

"No smoking in the cabin," the Captain said, not moving an inch.

"I'll put it out when we start moving."

"We're not going anywhere unless something drastic and exciting happens."

"Well, that's not going to happen," the older mate growled.

"Not unless the author finds some inspiration, certainly," the younger mate concurred.

"The author?"

"Yeah, the author of this story. It seems like he painted himself into a corner starting a story without action - especially as it's been forever since he last wrote fiction."

"You gotta be kidding me - we're in a boat of some kind that's going nowhere in a story of some kind that's going nowhere?" The older man asked.

"We don't even have names," said the Captain.

"Fuck."

"I suppose it was inevitable - it's not like this story has a central conflict," the younger mate said, looking at his feet.

"What was the author thinking? He started a story with a group of people accepting their fate at the hands of nature. That doesn't exactly set up a man vs. man or man vs. nature narrative," complained the Captain.

"You think he'll be able to save it?" the older mate asked, idly flicking his cigarette out the window.

"Depends on how you define success. Will he be able to tell a compelling story? No way. Will he recognize not every story he writes has to be good? Maybe. He just read Jules Verne's The Blockade Runner, so it should be clear he's allowed to write a dud. As for his real goal - filling up a piece of paper - well, he's almost done there."

"What happens to us when he's finished?"

"We cease to exist," answered the Captain.

The three of them spent a minute or so watching the rain beat down on the water that surrounded their small tug.

"Looks like it's starting to clear up," said the younger man to you, the reader.