I left the Narcissus on a Tuesday.

She disappeared before the port was in sight.

The loop is closed. The math resolved exactly as the engineer said it would. I had checked everything I could check. Gone below decks. Gone underwater.

I had also seen a reef four minutes from a boundary that exists only in the log. A seal on the forward hatch that is beginning to go. Nobody mentioned the seal except the crew member. The one place where the water gets in.

Narcissus was designed to leave no trace.

I wrote it all down. The loop and the reef and the seal and the smear and the tree and the tray held level at the hour before anyone needs anything.

And I still don’t know what story I’m telling.

That is what I came for.