The Line — Moby-Dick

Before the whaling scene he is about to paint, Ishmael stops to explain the whale-line, magical and sometimes horrible. American boats now favour Manila rope over tarred hemp: thin as two thirds of an inch, soft to coil, strong enough to bear nearly three tons. A sperm whale line runs more than two hundred fathoms and must be stowed in the tub like a round cheese without a kink, because one twist at the wrong moment can take off an arm or a whole body when the line runs out. Harpooneers may spend a whole morning reeving it clear of wrinkles. The lower end hangs free in a loop on purpose so another boat can bend on if the whale sounds deep, and so a sounding whale cannot drag the whole craft under.

When the chase begins, the upper end threads the boat from loggerhead to every oar loom, across wrists and through bow chocks, until the harpoon takes the strain and the whole crew sits inside serpentine coils. Landsmen see jugglers playing with snakes. Veterans joke while they row, like the burghers of Calais with halters round their necks. New hands shudder because they know the iron may fly at any instant and the line may snap into motion like machinery at full speed. Men are sometimes pulled overboard and lost that way.

Ishmael says the quiet coil before the strike frightens him more than the storm, the way a rifle holds powder and ball in graceful rest. All men live inside whale-lines, he adds, and feel the halter only when death turns fast. Which routine in your work sits coiled and harmless until it is not?