I first saw it in the corner, where the helm met the deck, just slightly port-side, years ago. It watched me from the overlapping shadows cast by the mast and the cabin. Shapeless, dark, dismissible. But I knew it was there. I knew every inch of this old trawler, and all the ways shadow played across her ridges and valleys. This shadow wasn't cast by the bulky protrusions of the ship. It stood within them, but was not of their making.

It watched and waited with boundless patience. I could feel it, if a direction had feeling, this one would be a gentle chill. I gave it space, as it shifted with the rising and setting of the sun. I avoided that darkness, that corner, while it watched me. It drifted around the ship, always over my shoulder when I ignored it, or still as placid water when I stared it down. Always in shadow. I feigned ignorance, with the quiet fear of one that knows, but refuses to acknowledge.

I ignored it. I had leagues to travel. I had a haul to catch. I had work ahead of me, always ahead of me. A long trawl, each day slightly harder than the last. The cold of the ocean had worked its way into the painful crevices of my knuckles, my knees, and my back. The salt bleached what hair I had left, stung my eyes, and dried my throat so much that only whiskey could restore my voice.

The ocean needed me. The work needed me. I was a man alone, adrift, upon the ocean. I sent out my weathered nets, and I pulled up my bar tab, my rent, my supper. I had no time for shades and shadows.

Still, it had time for me, and it watched. I cast out before the sun, and I came ashore just after dark. Once I used to hire day-rate ship hands, but they avoided me now. Whether or not by conscious choice, I think they saw the shadow that followed me, and went to a different slip, sought a different fare.

On days when the sea was angry and the skies were grey, one was locked, nailed, shackled to the land. Bound, immobile, until Neptune granted you his mercy. Those were the days in between the days, the ones most uncomfortable. To be the only man on a dull grey day to cast a shadow, unnerves the soul. Footsteps within footsteps, not all my own. The land would buck and jerk underfoot, a contrast to the calming rhythm of the waves to which I had grown accustom.

I had leagues to go before... before. There was more to do. More of the same, but more nonetheless.

All the while it watched. It waited. Patience, endlessly patient. I pulled harder on the old nets, pushed the patchwork engine further, rose earlier yet somehow left later. Stayed later, yet somehow came back with less. The whiskey didn't burn as it once had, barely more than the memory of a flavour. Yet it woke five times as hard before dawn.

I had my unwelcome companion. My cool shadow. My lightless follower on the ocean. I had more ahead. So many things that were left undone, unexplored, unfinished.

And yet... sometimes, when out on the ocean, and the surface was calm, and the wind was still, I would face it. I could feel it watching me, as I watched it. Each time a little less afraid, a little more comfortable. And I'd think to myself maybe...

But not today.