My chief security officer smelled candles, a fire hazard, so he knocked on a door and found them there on their knees. They’d built an altar. There were enough candles burning to signal shore. Arranged around the altar was some silverware I’d touched, a piece of carpet I’d stepped on, a very flattering sketch of my face.

“So you think I’m a God,” I say to the five of them, gathered now on the sectional sofa in my quarters. They have their heads bowed. They tremble before me.

“Not a God,” says one of them, a woman with a haphazardly shaved scalp. “The God.”

“Did you cut off all your hair while on board?” I ask.

She says nothing.

“We don’t wish to anger you,” another says, the man with the gray ponytail.

“Well good because captaining a vessel like this requires a lot of work,” I say with a smile. Not that any of them sees it. Their eyes are on the floor.

This happens to all cruise ship captains from time to time. On a cruise, one’s concept of the world shrinks down. When passengers look out from any angle and see nothing but vast, endless water, it’s hard not to change perspective. The ocean becomes their universe, their everything, the great unknowable All. The ship, their world of experience, a free-floating planet providing a bounty of food, drink and amusement, everything they could ever desire. When they look up at the bridge and they see me steering that ship, keeping it afloat, basically in complete control of whether everyone lives or dies, it’s easy for the spiritually hungry to posit me as their God, the benevolent mother of every soul on board.

The deifying of the cruise ship captain is why the Captain’s Table in the dining room has become such a custom. It’s important that passengers see the captain eat. So they realize the captain needs sustenance to live, just like them. The captain should also sleep with a passenger or two on every voyage, so that word can spread that their captain craves flesh and so could not be a spirit being. Some captains will make a point of spending an evening sobbing in their quarters with the door open, so that passersby can peek in and see a human being, just as tormented by emotions and regrets as anyone else. Anything to press upon them that their captain is human.

I’ve been remiss in my humanizing myself on this voyage. I’ve been skipping dinner and spending a lot of time in my quarters. Early in my career, when I’d discover a cult of worship had sprung up around me, I’d try to have a little fun with my new disciples and command them to do stuff. But it only made it harder to break the spell. You have to nip their faith in the bud as soon as you learn of it.

“Watch closely,” I say as I pull the knife from my boot and brandish the blade. They follow it as I press the blade to my palm and slice a diagonal slit in the skin.

I can see them struggling to hold on to their belief as my blood begins to saturate the carpet. It’s not easy to be reminded that you’re all alone in the world, but letting them go on believing is far too dangerous. We all know the legend of the Princess Cruise Lines SS Persephone that pulled out of Key West with 1403 souls on board and returned with 871, having lost nearly half of their passengers to a religious crusade that purged the ship of non-believers who refused to pledge faith to their Captain-God.

“I bleed,” I tell my disciples. “And if I bleed enough, I will die, just like you. When I am old, I will die, just like you. If I crash this boat into the rocks and it sinks, I will drown and die, just like you.”

They’re crying now. They’re huddled together on my couch and in tears.

“I don’t know what will happen to me when I die, when we die,” I say. “But I know that until then, we have a wonderful ship full of every pleasure we could desire, entirely at our disposal. Why not make the most of it?”

They nod through the tears. I help them up from the couch and lead them out into the hall, sending them back to their rooms. As they shuffle away, I call after them.

“There’s a square dance class happening in the Andromeda room tonight,” I say. “Why don’t you all go take a lesson?”