It’s fear that keeps you standing still.

I hear my grandfather’s weathered voice repeat as I halt on the precipice of adventure. The sand beneath my feet adjusts to the dead weight. The enormous ship is almost overbearing as it looms over me. It’s too vast, the trip too far.

I look up at the omniscient stars. Someone else, in another land, is doing the same thing. If I look up only at the stars, and never down at the clustered waves spinning around beneath me, then am I just travelling the sky one constellation at a time? Even dirt travels. Look at this rock burrowed on the edge of the sleepy ocean. I wonder where it came from, how many kingdoms it touched on the way? Has it stood still its whole life, or has it been travelling on every strong breeze until it landed here?

I could come back from this voyage and walk right up to this very spot among the prickly scrubs and never glimpse that same jagged rock. Then again, maybe nothing will appear the same again. Not the home that harboured me, or the roads that greeted my first steps, nor the rations that fortified me.

Whether or not I board this vessel, the world will still rearrange itself around me. How terrifying. I shake my head, taking hold of my satchel and stepping forward. No, how magnificent!

The end.