timebethine

It's taken Laertes a little over a month, but at long last, his boat is ready for launch. About twenty feet from stem to stern, she has a mast with a single sail and a set of painstakingly carved oars for windless days. She's been sealed with pitch and painted a deep blue-green, with a spray of painted pink flowers decorating the timbers to either side of her keel. Along the gunwale, in the same pink edged with black, Laertes has painted her name: Rose of May.

Now he stands beside the posts of his dry dock, contemplating a problem that he had not adequately anticipated: how to get her into the water.