The highest point of Penobscot Bay Lighthouse is almost invisible, and the morning sun shines on its Jǐngti eyes. I raised my sail and raised a faint breeze, contrary to my intentions, and sailed the ship farther into the Atlantic Ocean. I grabbed a book about sailing that I bought, "Navigation For Dummies' Guide", and browsed the "How to Go Back to Hell on the Shore" in the catalog, but it was obvious that my copy missed that chapter.
One of the pages was very enlightening. After reading it twice, I decided that I had better choose the line of "sailing for idiots". My only dream in the future is to return to land.
I slipped into the captain’s chair—a red sè nylon lawn chair—and found a better place for me. The title was "Wet your feet." There are a series of sketches with attached labels and after careful discussion, Michaelo Buping and I decided that we would have a schooner ourselves. According to the book, "A schooner is a traditional sailing vessel with two or more masts. The front mast (foremost) is shorter than the mainmast."
I looked up to see if the front mast was really shorter than the main mast, but I didn't know which end of the ship was the front. Therefore, the ship audit completely failed. Why can't the things on the ship be labeled like in a book? I made a notepad on the way home and wanted to buy some post-it notes.
The sun has just disappeared from the horizon of the ocean, and there are several fishing boats in the distance. I took the telescope from my neck and aimed at the nearest ship. The ship is mostly charcoal, nearly a hundred feet long, and full of three people in rags. The other boats are too far away for me to make out their names. I can't help but wonder if one of them is the Maine fishing boat. I also owe the crew a round of beer because they saved me. However, this is a completely different story.
I put down the binoculars, took a sip of beer, left an inch of spare beer in the dark brown bottle, and picked up the second piece of reading material I brought. This is a novel called "The Eighth of October". This highly anticipated book is a true crime thriller based on a series of murders that occurred in Maine last October.
I turned over the book in my hand. Most of the cover is exclusively occupied by a striking fir in Maine. Each leaf visually changes from emerald green to saffron yellow, and finally to cranberry red, giving a rainbow autumnal look. feel. A drop of blood fell on each leaf, forming a small puddle at the root of the tree.
I opened the front cover carefully, as if the words would fall out if I urged them. I found the dedication page and saw the dedication: Dedicated to eight women who lost their lives.
I did not read the name. I don't need to do this. I memorized them all.
I clapped my hands and closed the book, thinking fleetingly about throwing the 8th into the abyss of pickling in October. This book belongs to the sediments on the seafloor. The last thing this community needs is a 15-ounce relic left by a 15-day nightmare. I am very angry with the author, a pig named Alex Tums, who decided to earn a dollar at the mercy of these eight women. I'm very curious about this Tum's face, but he doesn't seem to have the courage to put his picture on the cover of the book. This decision may have been influenced by the letter I wrote to him, which specified in detail how I intend to end his life if I recognize him in public. If my letter shakes his decision, then this view has no practical meaning; this bastard October 1rì, or more notably, that day was the anniversary of the murder of the first woman.
What a tasteful guy. I hope someone can write a book about how he was beaten to death by his book at his autograph meeting. I will buy it.
I put down the book. step by step.
At this rate, I can finish reading this book in ten years. I took another bottle of beer from the refrigerator, and when I was there, I decided to take two as well. Did I mention that the cooler is equipped with the chair and is connected to the chair by default? It is true.
I drank two glasses of beer and ate egg salad again. Since the contents of my stomach and wine have entered my blood, I decided to read this book again. It's almost noon, and I haven't completed the task of three words per minute. I found the first page and started reading:
Autumn in Maine is different. The leaves fell from the tree, the golden harvest, trickled to the ground, a deep cherry. The lobster catch reached its peak, and the fishermen’s cages were filled with vermilion crustaceans. The sun awakened a country, slowly crawling across the Atlantic Ocean, showing a brilliant auburn. In October last year, Maine was covered by red sè. Not relying on leaves, not lobsters, not relying on rì, but relying on the blood of eight young women. Indeed, the situation in Maine last fall was different from elsewhere.
I peeled off the label on the beer bottle, as smooth as a brand new dollar bill, and thought of the last sentence: Really, the situation in Maine last fall was different.
I have to praise Mr. Toums: he may lack various levels of morality, but his works do capture the seriousness of that period. Around this time last year, people discovered the first woman. I was living in Philadelphia at the time, and there was a small report on the murder in the 18th page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I remember it very clearly, because this was the first time Maine stuff appeared in the newspaper.
The Maine newspaper is completely different. In a state with the lowest crime rate in the country, the discovery of a woman wearing thirty clothes made headlines. One of the smaller newspapers, Water City Tribune, published an article written by investigative reporter Alex Toums. The newspaper is on the verge of bankruptcy, and its vivid and absurdly accurate description of the murder has no loss. The newspaper sold more in October than the total sales of nine months ago.
After the massacre was over—or I like to say that, he took sick leave—publishers threw their arms to him, for example, to him. This book has climbed to fifth place in the New York Times bestseller list. Almost everyone I have talked to has read it, or is reading it, or is reading it for the second time. My sister even said it was pretty good. I called her Judas all week.
I was very interested in how Thomas described the body of the first victim. After browsing five pages, I found what I was looking for:
Aroostok, called the "county" by most New Englanders, covers an area of 645 square miles and grows more potatoes than any other county in the United States. In these two square miles of land, there is a simple small farmhouse. By noon in October, this once tamed farmhouse had become the largest crime scene in Maine's 50-year history.
Bangor’s chief forensic doctor, Caitlin Doz, briefly described the situation at the time: "It's disgusting. It's disgusting. This is the real Apple Johnny meeting Jack the Ripper."
The bodies of the victims were scattered within a radius of half an acre and were divided into thirty definite pieces. The most frustrating discovery came when the victim's abdomen was dug out. The blond coroner said, "It is clear that the victim is pregnant, except for the fetus."
Less than thirty feet away is the victim's unborn child.
I threw the book on the railing of the boat and it stopped like a teepee. This is the clear reason why I didn't want to read this book in the first place. Now a picture of an unborn baby lying in the field came to my mind.
I grabbed another sandwich (sausage and nǎi cheese) and focused on a less depressing image, especially Dr. Caitlin Doz. I think there is an unwritten rule that if you are a law enforcement woman, you must be unattractive, dull, and called Mel. Dr. Caitlin Doz is an exception to this rule. She is a stunner.
I closed my eyes, thinking of the good doctor, and fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes, I was directly blinded by the sun above my head. There is no cloud in the sky, and the morning star seems to occupy half of the sky blue. We are in a famous Indian summer in Maine, where the temperature is around 70 degrees.
I took a deep breath of the fresh ocean air, which reminded me of eating crackers while breathing in an oxygen tank, and then stared at Mother Atlantic. There were not many waves on her body this morning, and it was hard to believe that I was swinging up and down the second largest body of water on the planet. An Osprey flew nearby and made a dive-bomb-fishing action. I couldn't help feeling sympathy for the little silver guy in the mouth of the Osprey. One second he was still going down the river to visit his brother, the next second he became Superman, but he died in a mess. Poor little guy.
I took off my khaki shorts and boxer briefs, boarded the pier, and then checked whether there were other ships nearby, and then walked onto the natural wooden boards. The Atlantic Ocean was very cold at the time, but it was also very cold, just like you are in water above fifty degrees but below 51 degrees. If you want to learn more professionally, I am not in the Atlantic itself; I am in Penobscot Bay, forty miles east, always becoming the Atlantic.
The summer heat in the bay lasts for a while longer than the English Channel, and I feel very cold. I was walking in the water, watching Bai Sè's hull swing up and down with the current.
If you want to know the name, my sister Lacie, aptly named the ship after her Habakst. Alas, it is coming towards me. So don’t worry, right? mistaken. My whole body has cramps. This may be because I did not wait for half an hour after eating. Maybe it was because I drank five bottles of beer in the last hour. There is also a tiny chance that it is related to two large pieces of lead that have passed through my meat zipper nearly a year ago. The most likely is the combination of these three. (To be continued) (End of this chapter)