Blatant Revisionism

By G. David Schwartz

Christopher Columbus stood on a sun-drenched dock in Palos, Spain, staring out to sea. The creaking vessels rocked on the blue-green water, and the braying of seagulls added to the melody of port life. The stench of fish and other salt-ladened things was crisp in his nose.

But Columbus ignored everything connected with Palos. He was a foreigner, his sense of aloneness compounded by the fact that he was thinking foreign thoughts. The world is round. Or, if not round, then oblong. Certainly, there is something below the horizon. Every thinking person knew this to be a fact. The assumption that the world was flat was just nonsense. It was not even speculation. No crew had ever returned to report they have seen the edges of the earth. Ships disappear, that is true; but they sink as readily a knot off the coast as they do a thousand fathoms from shore. Furthermore, we can see the wreckage of ships. The hypothesis of a flat world has less validity than that of a round one.

Or is the world square?

No! Squares do not arch at the horizon. You cannot stand at one point of a square and see ships rising from the other. Look at the sun. Look at the moon. It is apparent that the God we worship created all matter spherically. I've seen round rocks and oblong rocks, but never a square rock. Never! And only occasionally have I seen a flat rock. Even then, I am told these are pieces which have been chipped away from a more solid mass — probably a round mountain.

No? Perhaps the world is a triangle.

No! The same problem arises. There are no triangle stars, no triangle planets. Ships will not ascend the horizon from a triangle surface. No, the world is round. Or oblong.

In any event, I shall prove whichever turns out to be the case when I reach the east by traveling west! Now, there's a feat. There, my fame shall lie.

Columbus had such thoughts often, sometimes dreamily, sometimes with great irritation. Each time he met with the king and queen, or one of their regents, to argue for gold and supplies, he became more and more convinced he was correct. The east could be found by traveling west, whether the earth was round or oblong. A new trade route would be discovered by going over the horizon, rather than by hazarding the currents to the north or south. And since no one had ever tried to reach the Indies by traveling away from the common routes, no pirates would relieve merchants of their goods. Not for a few years, anyway.

"We are ready. It is time."

Alonzo, his assistant navigator, was pointing toward the Santa Maria. The ship stood stoically between the two others, which wobbled amiably on the sea. Columbus gathered the parchments he had laid on the cobblestone and walked toward the creaking wooden ship.

After the first hectic hours, before boredom settled in, Columbus sat is his quarters and thought about his faithful friend Alonzo. Columbus knew in his own heart what he expected to achieve, but what motivated Alonzo?

How can one chart a course into emptiness? How can one be as calm and dignified as Alonzo, who stood on deck, empty scrolls in his trunk, waiting to design the future course of the world.

Columbus buttoned the top buttons of his uniform and went above. The ocean was eerily quiet, a methodic lapping of waves against the sides of the ship. Alonzo was leaning forward on the bowsprit, glaring into the distance. What he saw ahead of him was as empty and seamless as the papers in his trunk.

The voyage was a banquet of tedium, punctuated by speculation and intermittently greased by memory. The men began to dream and talk about green things: shrubbery, the listless plains, and women. They rehearsed adventures they had once had and composed lists of things they would do when they returned to Palos.

Columbus and his officers drearily listened to the men. They had heard these tales and promises so often they made them more nauseated than the rolling, rollicking, bobbing ocean.

One hundred days into the journey, the unbearable monotony was interrupted when something very odd was spotted ahead. The crew babbled incoherently among themselves when the truth of the situation suddenly presented itself to the Captain. "Turn back!" Columbus yelled, "Turn back." But it was too late. They had been caught up in the mad rushing currents, which dragged them off the side of the earth. The three ships and all eighty-seven men plummeted into the abyss, which lies beneath this flat earth.

"There!" My father said, cuffing me on the side of the head. "Is that what you want? Does that make you happy? Now you don't have to memorize the names of the presidents! You don't have to do mathematics! Are you happy? You don't exist!"

Quite the philosopher, my father, I thought as I rubbed my ear. Yes, quite the philosopher. And I ran to my room where I spent the remainder of the evening studying for tomorrow's history test.