I arrived on the bridge the other night for my watch.
The helmsman I relieve was in an animated discussion with the third mate, so I didn't interrupt to assume the watch, but instead settled down with my coffee over on the bridge wing.
The ordinary seaman was on the bridge for some reason, and he migrated over to where I was nursing my life-giving nectar and began talking at the side of my head.
Through the haze of freshly cast-off sleep and the bouquet of steam from that bean-juice cradled under my nose, I became aware of three distinct things at once:
First, the strange lights in the sky were back, and they were - once again - operating relative to Saturn; they were visible 5-degrees above the horizon, 2 points to port.
Next, the ordinary seaman was on the bridge to see these UFO's for himself (everyone aboard has heard about them), and he began explaining his understanding of them in relationship to the Simulation Theory.
An finally, to my other side, the helmsman was arguing with the third mate - attempting to convince him that the world was, in fact, flat.
I must ardently defend myself from the people who know me best - I had not prodded, poked, nor precipitated in any way the discussion about the Simulation Theory with the ordinary. It was entirely unprovoked.
I share Taco Tuesday dinners with many of these people, dinners which typically conclude at about the time I bring up the Simulation Theory.
But the flat-earther?
Not height-of-eye calculations, great circles in navigation, nor the observable phenomenon of a ship visibly coming up over the horizon were sufficiently persuasive arguments from the third mate to sway the mind of the guy who is paid to watch ships actually come over the horizon, while transiting the globe on a great circle, from a perch granting him a vantage point 138 meters up in the air.
It was a moment of sheer madness in all directions all at once, the least mad of which were the UFO’s tracing strange patterns in the dark sky.
