The Tipping Point

Author’s Note: This is the seventh part of a series about Farren’s journey through a limbo world where everyone is trying to reach the peak of a mountain but have a rope tied to their ankle. Catch up by reading Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6

Water was up to Farren’s ankle. It was cold and had soaked through his white shoes. Gesa, who had been slumping in the corner stood up, her pants were already soaked. Farren hoped this meant she was ready to help and asked, “What do you think we should do?”
Gesa gave him a light shrug, “I didn’t see a single storm while I swam across. I don’t know.”
He could still tell she was reeling from the shock of the situation. “We need to plug that hole.”
Then a flash of lightning lit up the cabin of the ship. The sound of thunder immediately followed it. The rain fell harder filling the boat faster.
“Do you think the rope will cover it?” He asked having to shout over the patter of rain on the deck. “It might soak through, but,” another flash of lighting followed by deafening thunder cut him off. The rain was unceasing, and the water level was climbing up his leg fast. Farren looked up and noticed that there was water leaking in between the logs of the deck as well. “Even if we plug that hole it will still seep in. This boat will sink in no time.”
The boat rocked from side to side, as the wind outside picked up. Farren had to put his hand on the wall of the cabin to keep from falling face first into the pool of water below him. He looked to Gesa for input, but she was staring into the darkness of the hull. The ship rocked back and forth, and from the tug, on his ankle, he knew the balls of rope weren’t stationary. It was only a matter of time before they went overboard, potentially pulling him in as well. The only thing that would stop that was if the boat filled with water and sunk first.
Then he settled on what he needed to do. He scrambled up the ladder and tied his rope to the mast a few yards away from his ankle. It seemed like long enough he’d have some slack and would keep him on board even if his rope wasn’t. He did the same thing for Gesa.
The wind blew hard enough to push him around the deck if he didn’t hold on to something but everything there was to hold onto was slick with the heavy rain. Farren scanned the horizon but spotted no blue sky. He was in the middle of a storm that reached to every horizon.
He climbed back down the ladder hearing a splash when his foot reached the last rung. The boat was rocking back and forth, it was almost enough to make him sick, but he knew it would help with what he was about to do. Farren removed the ladder and let it float in the cabin as he walked up to a wall of the boat.
He felt the swell of a big wave pull them then it let go. The water sloshed from one wall to another. As it did, he threw himself against the side of the boat. The boat leaned far to one side but quickly upped itself again. It gave Farren a sense of vertigo.
“The hell was that?” Gesa asked. Lightning flashed showing her face was green, and she looked like if they had eaten recently, she would have lost her lunch.
“We need to flip this,” Farren stated matter of factly.
“We what?” She asked over the clatter of rain.
“We need to flip this so that it will quit filling up with water. And we need to do it before it gets too heavy.”
“But we’ll lose our rope that’s on the deck,” she protested, “and we may never be able to get it upright.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Farren admitted, “But if it fills with water we’ll never get it from the bottom of the ocean. And all my rope is weaved into the walls. I’d be stuck here floating aimlessly for eternity. We need to keep this boat above water.”
The two sailors felt the swell of another wave pull’s them. Gesa joined him on the wall, and they pushed attempting to flip the boat.
It took them three more tries as the water reached their knees. They had to jump and throw themselves against the wall to get the boat to flip finally.
As it flipped, they felt like dice on a craps table. They flopped around in pitch black eventually landing on what used to be their ceiling. The boat was now pitch black, and it had none of the balance it used to have. They rocked even more than they had when the ship was right side up. On the bright side, Farren and Gesa weren’t sitting in a pool of water. It all drained out as Farren had hoped.
They rocked back and forth for hours. In the pitch black, there was no way to keep track of time. They slept to pass some of the time and talked having to pause occasionally to let the thunder to speak its peace.
“You know,” Gesa said as they sat together in the dark, “You’re good at getting yourself in terrible situations. First a massive boulder, now a capsized ship. It’s almost like you can’t approach a problem without doing it the hardest way possible.”
Farren thought about what she said as they listen to the rain pour onto the hull. “You’re right. It’s like the only problem worth solving to me is the impossible one. Do you think that’s how I was in my last life? Or it might be something I picked up here.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t really think it matters. It’s gotten you this far, for better or worse. Hopefully, it will get you up the mountain.”
“Or at least to my boulder,” Farren said leaning against the wall of the hull and staring into the pitch black of the ship.

Gesa woke Farren up with a light nudge. He startled awake, blinking his eyes trying to get a world to appear in front of him. When his tiredness faded enough to remember that he was in the dark hull of the ship he just capsized he stopped blinking. “What’s going on?” He asked Gesa.
“We’re not rocking anymore.”
Farren’s inner ear agreed with Gesa’s observation. He hadn’t noticed it since they had been at sea for months and there had been a constant back forth waves, but they were no longer in the middle of the ocean storm.
“So how do we get this thing right side up again?” Gesa asked.
Farren shrugged, but the gesture was lost in the darkness. “Let’s get out into the light first.” He crawled along the ground until he was able to find the hole that used to lead to under the deck but now lead to a watery abyss. “It’s over here?” He called out in the darkness. Gesa made her way to him. They took a deep breath and slid under their capsized ship.
Farren opened his eyes underwater and immediately regretted it. The salt stung but it was the only way he could see where he needed to go. Light shone in all around the boat, and Farren was quickly able to lead himself out from under the ship. When he broke the surface of the water, he sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. Gesa was right behind him.
Their eyes adjusted to the light and they looked at the upside-down boat. Their hull was less than smooth which helped them clamber up the sides. With a little bit of effort, they were able to climb to the new top of their boat.
The only damage the boat sustained was the rudder that they hadn’t used. The clump of wood was drifting nearby, anchored to the ship with some loose rope that had untangled from its logs.
“I’d say she did pretty well,” Farren said admiring their craftsmanship. “Aside from being upside down,” he added.
“You know where all our rope is right?” Gesa asked as she sat down on the ship.
Farren nodded. “It was moving around too much and was going overboard anyway. It wasn’t tied down.”
Gesa tugged at the rope attached to her ankle. “It was tied to something.”
Farren joined her cross-legged on the new deck of the ship. He let out a large sign and looked at the clear sky. “At least there won’t be another storm any time soon.”
“No, I’m sure they’ll wait until we get situated and start making progress again then summon another storm.”
“Maybe,” Farren admitted, “But we’re not going to sit here for eternity. We’d drive each other mad. All we have to do is roll the ship and retrieve our rope. Then we’ll be on our way to retrieving your rock and heading up the mountain.”
“You really think you can do it don’t you?” Gesa asked in disbelief.
“Sure. It might be difficult, but we rolled the boat once. I think with some clever rope work we could get the thing upright.” Farren answered already inspecting the sides of the boat for a tie off point.
“No, I mean make it to the top of the mountain.”
“Oh,” Farren realized they had been having two different conversations. “I don’t see why we couldn’t.”
“Because no one has done it so far. And because you literally have the biggest bolder in the world.” Gesa laid down on her back. The sun had dried their clothes. “It’s not even that you refuse to give up. If it was just that it’d be fine. But it’s the fact that you wind up in these awful situations, most of which you put yourself in I might add, and you still believe you can get yourself out of them. It’d be inspiring if I knew you could do it, but you’re trying to do the impossible. It just seems ignorant at this point.”
“What else am I supposed to do?” Farren asked with a shrug. He had taken his attention off solving the boat problem for a moment and looked at Gesa.
“I don’t know,” Gesa answered defeated. “I appreciate that you’re always solving problems. I’d probably still be tugging at my rope on that beach if you hadn’t shown up. But stop acting like you’re going to scale the mountain with whatever massive boulder you have attached to the other end of that rope. Eventually, you’re going to get to a problem that’s physically impossible to solve.”
Farren sat down on the hull of the boat. She was right, he had been focusing on creating and solving problems for himself to make it to his boulder but he knew there was no way it would get up the side of the mountain. “You’re right. One day I will probably get to a problem I can’t solve. And when I get there, and I’m stuck then I’ll admit that you’re right.
“But I can’t stay still for all eternity. I have to keep moving. That’s what I’ve done this whole time, I’ve moved in the only direction that I can, towards my boulder. And sure, it’s taken me away from my goal, but I’ve gained a sort of freedom in the process. I have slack! I can move around more than any person in this world. The boulder isn’t hindering my movement like it is for everyone else.
“You’re right. Maybe my rock is on the opposite side of the world from the mountain. Maybe there is absolutely no way for me to get to the top like I’m supposed to. But that would still give me the ability to move everywhere else in this world. So please, at least for this afternoon. Let’s try to get this boat right side up and start moving again. Because right now we’re stuck. And I don’t want to be stuck in the sun or a dark cabin for all of eternity. I want to move, and maybe it’s in the wrong direction, but I can’t stand the idea of staying still.”
“Fine,” Gesa said admitting that she had nothing more to say but wasn’t happy about it.

It took them longer than the afternoon to get the boat upright, but with some of their copious slack and some tricky rope work, the ship was eventually upright in the water. According to Farren, the next step was to get their rope back on board.
Farren’s knots at the front and back of the boat kept the boat in place. They spent the entire morning of the next day pulling up their rope. By early afternoon Gesa had gathered up all of her rope. Farren, on the other hand, was having trouble with his. They combined their forces, but even after tugging at it all afternoon and evening it refused to come loose.
Lying on the deck staring up at the starry night sky Farren came to a realization. “I’m going to have to dive down and unknot it from whatever it’s stuck on aren’t I?”
It took Gesa some time to reply and when she did all she said was, “I’m not sure, probably.”
“How deep do you think it is?” Farren asked, looking for companionship more than an answer.
“We’re in the middle of the ocean. It could be miles deep. Not to mention this world is nothing like where we came from. It could be bottomless for all we know.”
“If it’s bottomless then what’s my rope and your rock stuck on?” Farren asked trying to reconcile her claim with reality.
“Bad luck,” was Gesa’s only response. After that, neither had much to add to the evening’s conversation.

The next morning the two travelers started with some pointless pulling on Farren’s rope in a last ditch attempt to not have to swim to the bottom of the ocean. They quickly gave up accepting the inevitable.
“Just make sure that my rope isn’t taught as I swim down. The last thing I want to do is be an arm’s length away from the knot and not have the slack to get it. Especially when I have that massive thing.” He gestured at the damp ball of rope they had pulled up the day before.
“I can do that,” Gesa said. “The part I have an issue with is pulling you back up after the fact. How will I know when to reel you in?”
“I’ve been thinking about that too. I think the solution is that you don’t.”
“Pardon?” Gesa’s face was in shock.
“Here’s how I figure it: I will hopefully make it to the bottom, untie the knot, but after that chances are low that I’ll be able to make it back up to the surface in one breath. On the bright side, I’m pretty sure dead bodies float. All you’ll have to do is drag me onto the deck and wait for me to resurrect or whatever.”
“Are you sure that’s what will happen?” Gesa asked her face was disgusted. Farren could tell the idea she’d have to pull his corpse onto the deck of the boat was disturbing her.
Farren thought back to the man who hanged himself with his rope and suffocated every morning. “Yes, I’m sure I will come back to life after suffocation. If you can get the water out of my lungs, the rules of this world will take care of the rest.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Chances are pretty good I’ll come back to life the next morning anyway. Although I might have a lot of coughing to do when I wake up.” Farren’s mouth cut into a thin smile at his attempt to make light of his potential death.
“I don’t like this,” Gesa admitted
“Me neither, but I don’t have a better way.”
“It could take hours for your body to float to the surface or you could get stuck on something like your rope is, or the tide might take you somewhere far away. I don’t want to stand idle while I wait for your body to come to the surface.”
Farren frowned with the corner of his mouth, “Yeah me neither.”
“I’ll tug on your rope every few seconds. If you tug back, that means you’re still swimming down and alive. If you don’t kick back then I know I should start pulling you up. Hopefully, I can bring your back to life, and we can try again if we have to.”
“I really hope I don’t have to do this more than once.”
“Farren, I’m hoping you don’t die in the first place,” Gesa admitted.
Behind all her sassy attitude leading up to this dive, Farren saw that she was as scared as he was. Probably because what happened to him would indicate what had to happen to her when she went to dive for her rock. Assuming they got Farren’s rope unstuck in the first place.

Author’s Note: Sorry for not having any pictures this week. Life has been a bit busy with the holidays coming up and all. As for the length of this story I’m wondering when it will end as much as you are. I know how it will end (I’ve known it since I started writing the story) it has just taken longer to get there than I’d planned. I’m excited for the end and I hope you are too!