Juno

17 April 2022

There was a sky full of stars, on the night between July 31st and August 1st, 1941, watching over the placid and rhythmic waters of the Mediterranean. The captain enchantedly observed the coasts of Crete, a jagged line illuminated by the moon, like an everlasting horizontal lightning bolt, full of promises. Looking out from the bow of his ship, with the Royal Navy flag that, pushed by the wind, caressed his hair, he thought about how much they had been through together in recent years; him and his Juno, whose name stood out boldly on the side, corroded by the fatigue of years of navigation and battles. World War II had unexpectedly plunged into their lives, in just three years from the ship's launch the world had changed and, as always, for the worse.

For days the radio had shown no signs of life. All the officers were hopefully waiting for news, or orders, anything that would unblock them from that situation. The first deck officer was approaching with quick steps. The commander immediately distracted his gaze from the horizon, alarmed by the sudden arrival of his second in command. "Commander, I am here to officially ask you for an explanation as to why the logbook has been stuck on May 21st." His words struck him in his pride. Someone must have tampered with the logbook. Perhaps they wanted to hide something. His sense of ethics and duty had never allowed him, in years of navigation, to skip even a single day in the logbook. The captain was furious. His brain, flushed with blood, struggled to think clearly. Reality suddenly no longer seemed like what he was used to. He raised his gaze and, where a few minutes before there had been a starry sky, now there was a patina that blurred the lights and moved rhythmically. His ship's anchor was thrown on the deck, followed by the chain that held it firmly to the rest of the ship. He looked out over the bow again and saw the keel resting on the solid sand and understood that the same fate had befallen his eternal dreams of navigation.