The Perspective of the Port

            The port was content.  It was made of sturdy wood brought from far away, its nails were rusty but sound, and it had stood up to many storms and weathered them out. 

So when this storm came it thought it would be the same as before.  How wrong it had been, the port thought.  How had it come to this?  What was making the wind shriek so loud, the waves so high?  The port sighed as yet another nail came loose.  Seven in this one storm when it had hardly lost three in the past ten years.  This did not bode well.

            Could it have something to do with that strange man from earlier?  The port heard the man worrying about how “he” might be angry with him.  The man (his name was Jonah, the port remembered,) had gotten onto a fishing boat captained by a man who had grown up hauling fish on the port.  Now the port wondered who “he” was that Jonah was so afraid of.  At the time the port had assumed it was some gambler Jonah had become indebted to, now it was not so sure.  This storm did not feel natural; for one thing it wasn’t even storm season.  The wind did not feel like it came from the Black Sea to the north, or the western Mediterranean.  It smelled like the surrounding sea, which wasn’t possible, as far as the port knew.  So where did it come from?

            The port had heard about God from travelers, but had never been really interested.  Its job was to provide docking for ships and to weather storms, so it wasn’t much concerned about God.  But now it wondered if Jonah had angered God, and God had sent the storm to punish Jonah.  If God always sent storms to punish people, the port thought, it should really be concerned!
RETURN TO STORY