The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

At twenty he had been passionately certain: in the depths of the world’s darkness was a point of light which had been provided for him alone and would draw near someday to irradiate him and no other.

A vision of death now eternally beyond his reach, majestic, acclaimed, heroic death unfurled its rapture across his brain. And if the world had been provided for just this radiant death, then why shouldn’t the world also perish for it!

Still immersed in his dream, he drank down the tepid tea. It tasted bitter. Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.