The submarine was glass all around, and I was not frightened when we went down to the bottom of the harbour in it, eventually gliding ever-so gently above the sand. When I say we, I mean the inventor and I. He was an old, beared man with a strangely calming eccentricity. This trait of his was completely unique, because mostly, eccentricity is disconcerting in such circumstances. It made him appear supernatural and in total control of his environment. There was no question of the seaworthiness of the craft for him.
"Now let's see," he said, as he closed the hatch above, which was also made of glass ( he did so quite nonchalantly), and the noises of the roaring waters around us, and of the families playing in the breakers faded above, and we went down into the bottom while he shuffled around some papers regarding business he had later to attend to. It was like the whole thing was done for my delight; such was his generosity. He'd done this countless times before, and was onto bigger things. Far more important projects than this little toy of his.
As I looked around me, what astonished me most was the sophisticated simplicity of the submarine's design. The capsule seemed to be devoid of any controls: No gear levers, no machinery, and above all, no engine that I could make out, only this moving structure of glass that was completely stable and gave no sign of difficulty as as it manouevred 20 meters down! Was there something in the molecular structure that was powering the vehicle's underwater flight?
I wouldn't call him happy, but he was certainly enraptured in his own world. And if the submarine was any reflection of that world, it was a warm one. None of the chill of the atlantic was apparent in the moving room of glass. It was much like being in a car. It wasn't long before we came back to the surface. The seas were rough, but we didn't feel any of the turbulence. The craft was as placcid and immovable a great tanker might have been on a calm day. Then we saw some great waves washing over the rocks in the mouth of the harbour, not so far into the distance. A woman surfer was flung across them as she tried to grapple for some stability. Another man was tumbled over the rocks too.
For my guide, this came as no surprise. He was intimately connected, not only with the sea, but with all life and all aspects of reality. He merely pointed out that the sea was not built for play on this particular day. Then we made our way to the parking lot, and we went our different ways. I don't know where the glass submarine was stored, although I suspect the man placed it in the back of his van. I went to the main road of the town which lay further inland, which was where my car was parked. Some friends who had been waiting for me asked me where I had been the whole time. They invited me to drink with them. I wasn't so sure about that, so I went to an ugly old building - a warehouse that had been made into some type of chuch. The reception was cold and I felt pretty lost. I realised for the 100 millionth time I had nowhere to go. Like the man with the glass submarine, my home was no place at all, even if, at times I was able to appreciate the wonders of science and a kind of inner harmony to which no one else had access.
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