# S410: DEEP By [Andrew Shanahan](https://paragraph.com/@shanahan) · 2023-04-06 --- The crew pulled on the thick, wet rope that clung to the side of the trawler. “Anything?” “Nothing!” Four faces peered into the black rising swells that pitched the boat up in the air. “Keep pulling.” “But…” “Keep pulling.” The captain stalked from the deck and the hands watched as his face reappeared in the murky window that overlooked the deck of the ship. He shouted something they couldn’t hear at them. Without a word they turned themselves back to the rope. The three hands’ eyes met as they started to pull again, straining their muscles against the depths of the sea and the friction of the clammy rope pulling against the side of the boat. This was madness. They knew it for a certainty. Even the captain knew it. Deep in his heart, he knew it. But there was a deeper law at sea. The captain gave the orders and the hands executed them. Between the three they had served nearly fifty years. Five decades of orders ingrained in them, so deeply that it pervaded the men as deeply as the smell of the fish that marked them when they were on shore. The rope bit on something and they knew that it was the full extent of the rope’s slack. As one the three men felt the rope pull back and await their decision. They pulled on. There was a resistance and then a jarring kick and the men felt the moment of their capitulation. The pulling went easier now and hand over hand they felt the rope flow and coil itself upon the deck. The rope came yard by yard, fathom by fathom and the seas began to boil. A wash of white. A turning mass that pulled and pinched the boat by its stern. The captain looked from his dingy aerie and oversaw the men on the deck, he oversaw the spool of the rope on the deck and he oversaw the black circle of the plug as it rose to the surface.                                                     \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece of fiction is written live and teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it gives birth to an entire universe. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even being killed in my longer fiction works. --- *Originally published on [Andrew Shanahan](https://paragraph.com/@shanahan/s410-deep)*