Well, El Sancho votes that Mark stays. I know these forums are not a democracy, but I’m going to vote anyway, so I vote he stays.
I mean you can’t kick the championship team out of league – that would cause a race towards mediocrity, or as Hunter S. Thompson put it, “A downward spiral of dumbness.”
Also, I like reading his stories. And I don’t know about you guys, but every once in a while I get a burning desire to write something, and then I go at it until it’s down on paper, in some sort-of form (coherent or not) or other, and then the pressure is off and I can go on with my life – mow the grass or change the oil in the car or something. I think a lot of us are like that and it’s nice to have a thread where we can throw our stuff out there and get a critical assessment of it.
Enough of that. Hey Mark, I found this really cool picture that could serve as illustration to your 2010 story:
Death of Icarus, by Brueghel, 1558
If I’m not mistaken, that’s your protagonist’s leg sticking out of the water in front of the ship.