Equatorial Scrabble

We crossed the equator at 14:18. There was no line in the water. I checked, because a lifetime of maps leaves certain unreasonable expectations, and it seemed worth giving geography the opportunity to behave as advertised. The sea declined. It continued looking like sea, with no visible acknowledgement that we had passed one of the world's more famous abstractions.

There is something pleasing about an exact time attached to an invisible event. At 14:17 I could have looked outside and seen much the same thing, but a minute later the occasion had acquired significance. I stood considering this with the seriousness of someone who has no direct responsibility for getting a ship across anything and can therefore concentrate on the symbolism.

Priya and I marked the crossing with Scrabble and pineapple biscuits. The biscuits provided a crisp, sweet certainty absent from the view, while the board offered a smaller geography over which disagreements could be conducted in detail. Priya approached it with her usual composure. I approached it hoping the change of hemisphere might improve the distribution of useful letters.

She won by seven, although her arithmetic depended on a triple letter square I maintain had already been used. My objection did not disturb her calm. The ship dictionary, useful in disputes about words, does not adjudicate board state. This is a serious limitation in what otherwise presents itself as an authoritative volume. We had crossed the equator together, but apparently the boundary between her score and mine remained beyond negotiation.