The Captain and the Osequito - III - Welcome to Georgia

 "Now I just have to take you through these questions and then get a positive test from you for our intake process.  I'm real sorry, it's just sumptin' they make us do."

I nodded my head and took a seat in one of the many chairs in the large sunny room.  The woman placed herself in a seat across from me - a healthy distance of over 6 feet - and I began to fidget nervously with my new unicorn mask that was way too big.  I cursed myself silently and made a mental note (probably for the 20th time since this damn pandemic began) that I need to start buying child-size for myself just like I do for my work clothes and PPE when I'm on the boats.  God did I miss the boats already.

"Alrighty so, we like to look at our clients profiles before they come in and just do a quick look over - so I know a little bit bout who I'm goin' be talking to - and then we start with the big things.  Now I am so sorry I must bring this up... but one thing that stuck out to me was the abuse.  Can you tell me a lil bout that?"

"Most of the rapes and assaults happened in my early twenties." I said curtly, daggers in my eyes and venom in my voice.  

The woman fidgeted uncomfortably.  

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment at myself, at my own anger that this woman had nothing to do with and in no way deserved.  Damn hormones. The woman opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off before she could ask the next question on the list, that it seemed, we both were beginning to dread.  "I was a system kid..." I said hurriedly, quietly. "... with a bad habit of running away.  The world isn't nice to a girl like that - never mind New York City - and I didn't let it go or let myself change for a long time.... That's all."

The woman nodded politely. "Now the physical, verbal and mental abuse, that occurred before Child Services - I assume it was Child Services? - Took you?"

"Yes."

"Previous pregnancies... No living children?"

"Yes, no children."

"But the miscarriages, it says here you've had 5?  When do they usually occur?"

"Between 5 and 7 weeks."

"Do you have any medical issues that you know of?"

I was tempted to roll my eyes, knowing damn well that she was looking at my "medical issues" on the iPad on her lap, but I took a little breath instead and adjusted my too-big unicorn mask - maybe more to hide my expression than protect myself from any Coronavirus that was floating around.  Cool it, Miranda. I silently reprimanded myself. Cool it you hormonal psychopath. "Yes..." I finally said.

The woman leaned back and stared at me with an encouraging expression on her face.  I sighed.

"I'm on the Autistic Spectrum." I said quickly. "And have psoriasis and PTSD."

"Medications?"

"I take Prozac and Clonazepam for the PTSD."

"Yes we were wondering about the Clonazepam-"

"-I already spoke to my doctor and had it lowered to a safe dosage as soon as I found out I was pregnant.  He said the Prozac was fine at the dosage I've been on."

"Oh good! Yes Prozac is absolutely fine, I just needed to make sure about that klonopin.  Now this doctor, where is he?"

"He's in New York City, I've been seeing him for almost ten years and he has had patients give birth on both medications successfully."

"Gosh, you are just on top of things aren't you!?" The woman exclaimed. "That is just so good."

I was starting to lose my patience, and my focus, and maybe some hope too - questions about the past do that to me.  My stomach was starting to spoil itself again and I could feel a mean fart building up.

"Let's see what's next here? You...." The woman trailed off.  I don't think I was even looking at her anymore.  I was probably looking out the window, eyes searching for a bird, even though the gauzy curtains were drawn.  Bird-watching.  Another old habit.  But that's one I've never let go of, and for the sake of hope and sanity... well I hope I never do.  The woman shifted in her seat catching my attention again.  She flipped the iPad up at her self, stared at it for a second, then smiled, shook her head, and rested it face down beneath her elbows as she leaned towards me.

"What am I doing?" She finally said.

I stared at her, confused.

"You've been through this before haven't you?" She asked, but not to me.  It felt like she was asking it to the whole sunny room, the four other white christian ladies sitting behind the glass in the lobby past the walls and closed doors, god above even.  She pushed back a strand of long brown hair that had fallen from behind her ear and continued. "No... I know you have - I mean I have it all here, I don't need you to tell me, I already read it.  New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, just with this pregnancy alone!  And... this is the longest a pregnancy has ever made it for you, isn't it?"  She did not wait from my response.  "I can't imagine how tired you are, never mind the stress.  My, Lord.  And you seem no stranger to travel... or strangers asking questions."

"Yeah" I snorted with a dark little chuckle.

"Yet seem so good, so..."

"Well adjusted?" I offered.

"Yes! I like that.  I never heard that one before."

"Must be a northern thing." I shrugged, thinking of all the psychologists that prodded at my brain when I was a little kid in New York City. "They say it there all the time."

"Must be." She said staring off.  We both sat there quietly for a moment, then she looked down at her iPad again, and fell apart into a fit of giggles that doubled her to her knees before she picked her head back up suddenly, beaming at me.  "Can... Can I tell you something?" She finally gasped.

"Yeah?" I said, starting to feel a smile creep across my own face.  

"Your Baby's Father's Name." She laughed, still catching her breath.  Suddenly I realized where this was going and began smile too, that big hood-rat shit-eating grin I've still got after all these years, ear to ear. "My lord we have never, EVER, had somebody answer that question with "Shit Head" before!"  By now I was laughing too, holding my little baby belly with one hand and struggling to keep the stupid too-big mask balanced on the bridge of my nose with the other. "Why I had to call all the ladies over just to see it!" She continued. " 'Why looky here this girl said her baby-dad's name is SHIT HEAD!' Oh we laughed honey.  I've been wanting to write that for some of the girls that come in here for years... but I guess we southern girls are a little more reserved... Not that you offend us!"

"No offense taken." I said cordially, still laughing myself.

"You... you made our day!  I was going to walk in here and say 'Now mister Sheet Hee-ahd, Where is he now?' but i just couldn't do it!"

"You should-a" I replied with a mischievous grin.  All the hostility, and nervousness, and worry melted away as we sat there and laughed together - two strangers from two totally different worlds - in a big old sunny room.  She dabbed at her eyes delicately with her finger tips.  I pushed my whole palm through my short, unkempt, hair.  She was pretty.  She was thin - but healthily so - with a pale face, shinning eyes, and long brown hair.  Maybe she was a little older than me, maybe she only seemed that way because she was the one sitting in neat business clothes with an iPad on her lap, and I was the one sitting in the only clothes left that fit, with a baby in my belly who I could only be 85% sure who the father was.  I wondered what she thought of me, and then just as quickly brushed the thought away.  Who the fuck cares anymore? I thought, and the thought felt like a bird, up and flying away, in the trees I couldn't see behind the gauzy curtains.

"Oh I guess what I'm trying to say..." She finally said, laughter still glittering her words. "What I'm try to say is... oh I just don't know!"  She shook her head and giggled again.

"Well..." I said slowly, feeling all of New York in me rush to the top of my throat and brim my eyes, like a crowd to the doors of the 4, 5, 6, at rush hour - any mid town stop.  "What you're saying is, you've never had a New York City raised, female mariner walk in the doors before."  I leaned back, proud of myself.

"No!" She cried out as a fit of laughter spilled from both of us again. "No we most certainly have not!  WELCOME TO GEORGIA!!" 

I think that was the moment when I finally decided it:  I like it here.

The Captain and The Osequito - II - Luck

 II

I shuffled myself back up to the check in window with my head down, feeling defeated.  I was hoping to find the three East Indian women who originally checked me in, but instead there was a large black woman with a warm cherub face and shoulder length hair, maybe in her forties, sitting on a stool to the right of the window.

"I... I think I need to stay another night." I said softly, still looking at the ground. "And maybe... I was wondering if you have a weekly rate here?"

The woman stepped off the stool and met my knit brow with her warm face and a welcoming smile that even my quick dart of a glance could feel before my eyes fixed themselves back on the ground.  Grey concrete and pine needles.  "Well that's okay, honey." She said.  "What room are ya in?"

"105" I mumbled.  She turned around to a computer with a brightly colored chart on the screen and tapped at a few keys on the keyboard before turning back to me.

"I don't know if she started you on the weekly rate," She said gently, "but you give me a moment and I'll see if I can call her."  The woman stepped away again.  This time I couldn't see her from the tiny street window.  I fidgeted nervously with my purse and glanced across the parking lot.  Palm trees, grey concrete, pine needles.  An older looking black gentleman at the far end of the motel, next to a small barbecue grill that I smelled making dinner the night before.  The muffled voices of the patrons of the restaurant across the street.  I ate there my first night.  Appetizer sampler - the crab balls were the only thing I could get down, and a guilty glass of red wine.  "I'm sorry." the woman said, suddenly on the other side of the glass again, as if she had just glided there out of my hurt, and worry, and afternoon reverie. "I can't get a-hold of her, I'll have to charge you the same rate for now.... it's 50 dollars, you know?"

I nod silently.  We stood there both for a moment, on either sides of the glass.  I could feel her eyes on me, gentle and concerned, mine lost again in the grey concrete and pine needles, my fidgeting hands, my old steel toed boots. "You are going to pay, aren't you?" She said finally.  I nodded quickly, embarrassed this time, and fished through my purse for two twenties and a ten before changing my mind, and dragged out a hundred instead.  "Make.... make it two nights?" I said quietly, "If that's alright..." and pushed the bill under the small gap at the bottom of the window to the little ledge inside. "I don't think my luck is turning anytime soon..." I added quickly, while she gently picked up the bill and smiled at me again. 

"All I need is your key card now."

I fished it out of my purse and pushed it under the window as well.  The woman turned away again, and after a few moments reappeared. With the same small welcoming smile she placed the key card back in my hand. "And don't you worry, honey," she said. "It will."

The Captain and the Obsequito - I - Shotgun

I

 We parted ways at the end of the Rankin Bridge.  Dad turned right, towards Homestead to get pandemic rations for the cats.  I turned left, toward Georgia, to win my old blind horse back and have my first child, alone.  And then I started to cry.

Well, I guess I wasn't entirely alone at least.  I am being dramatic and blame the pregnancy with it's many complicated hormones for that.  I had Brooklyn riding shot gun, of course.  Always shotgun.  Only my good stories start that way - and though I know neither of us are eternal or immortal - I do hope that for some time more they continue to always start out this way.  Grace was behind my head in a cheap crate zip tied together from a larger cat's escape efforts that snapped all the little plastic clips some time ago.  A larger cat who used to be her housemate, with another kitten, and a little blue lobster in a fish tank, and a welder, in a home that used to be ours - or so I thought.  Funny what turns out to be conditional, when people think they are "unconditionally" in love.  Or at least, I thought we were.

The roads became ones I'd never driven before too fast.  I never leave town by turning left at the end of the Rankin Bridge.  I always turn right, to 347.  Always.  My tears blurred the autumn trees into big globs of yellow and orange hanging over freight trains and the river on either side of me, the black top like a tired grey ribbon stretched and twisting in an impossible dream before me.  Grace meowed softly, plaintively, behind my head.  Brooklyn nervously licked my trembling right hand.

"We're gon-" I stammered, choking on a sob, spitting flecks of tears that had gathered in the corners of my lips onto my left hand and the steering wheel beneath its white knuckles and brown tattooed skin. "We're gonna be okay."

Bottom paint

"Ohhh, thank you Pedro." I hum with a smile into cooling evening air and sunlight, mid May, 6pm.
 "Your welcome, Senorita." He says.  He walks away and I look down at the bottle neck still smiling, remove the napkin and plastic shot cup, take a small sip then set it down on the parking lot curb, my scraps of sandpaper ruffle and skip in the 5 knot breath of a southerly, kissing its glass bottom, my converse shoes.  The autumn leaves of a marina in spring.
I smile.  With about as much effort as the southerly's breath.  That half smile of weariness and half formed thoughts.  I hear Pedro though I cannot see him anymore, behind the two boats down where he is working tonight.  Bottom painting.  We've both been set to bottom painting for our hours of the day into these hours of the approaching night.  A can sets down on pavement with a metallic scrape, a paint roller frame spins.
"Hey, better finish soon, if rain bothers you."
I laugh. "It doesn't!" 
Pedro's reply - the scratch of the paint tray shifting on the pavement, the paint roller frames spin.  A low dissatisfied "humf".  My mind wanders.  My task rolls by like the black paint, cooling air, dimming light, time.  I see him in my thoughts my movements his reflection.  I am once again the twenty-something starting up in the yard, living the old salts memories.  The "I was you", the "wear your damn respirator! God if I listened when I was your age...." the "pay the kid, don't you remember?", the tattooed memory, blending again the lines of a timeless tradition.
Pedro finishes before me, he waits at the bow of the catamaran as I make my way forward.  I am the reflection of his movements.  I "humf" at a chip I missed sanding, I double back - my cheek millimeters from the wet paint, smooth a sag. 
He waits until I step back and we both nod satisfied. 
"Good job." he says.  I grin.  "But next time work top first, remove the tape then start the bottom."
"I remember." I say.
"Good.  Now I tell you how to bill.  You listen, this guy, he doesn't like to pay...."

IX

“Im only doing this because something seriously weird is going on.” Anda said to Lyn as they swam. “I have a reputation to uphold, you know?”
“Mmmff.” Said Lyn.
“Right? Like I can’t have it get around that I’m a reformed mermaid or something.”
“Fffff” Said Lyn.
“Lyn, are you judging me right now?”
“Mmmff.”
“I know,” She said “you just care about eating penguins and playing in storms but don’t worry, I’m getting this over with this time and then we can go back to being awesome.”
“Mm.” Said Lyn.  Suddenly something struck Anda on the head and she stopped abruptly. Lyn made a sound like a laugh.
“God damn it thats the second time today!” She cried. “Stop laughing at me!!”
“Mmp map map!” He chuckled, spinning in circles and flips. Anda ignored him and held the object out in the quickly fading twilight.
“Y A H O O.” She read aloud. “That’s a new one, we must be close.”
“Mmp map mmp.” said Lyn.
“Oh you stop it. Come on.” She waved her fin at him motioning him forward, then they both swam on.

Anda wasn’t sure how it worked, maybe somebody explained it to her once but she hadn’t been paying attention. She just knew where to meet the ship. That was enough for her. She didn’t want to know how it worked, she didn’t want to know much of anything about it anymore because she had no choice in it and she hated it. It wasn’t the deaths so much that bothered her. A sailor that goes to sea without acknowledging that there his a chance he or she will drown is an idiot, Anda thought. Not to say there weren’t a few she’d met. Usually greenhorns and landies, she’d made sure to tell them to their faces what fools they were the moment before they took their first breath of seawater. Most went out dignified and brave though, as is the tradition of sailors. She left those in peace in their final moments, watching from afar. She knew most sailors have envisioned themselves drowning at least once, and did not feel she had the right to impede on their personal fates. No. It wasn’t the deaths that bothered her. It was having to be their harbinger, she thought. She liked the humans. She had to watch them for a few days before their fates caught up. They were funny. Some screamed and ran in fear, which delighted her. Others would sing with her and throw her roses, calling her beautiful. She even talked to a few, all of which offered at some point the opportunity for her to become human as well by sharing their bunk. She would respectfully decline, explaining that she would have to kill them for that to work. Of course they were to die fairly soon after, but she never had the heart to tell them and the thought of slitting a throat that had just shared so many beautiful words with her made her stomach twist in painful knots. So maybe it was the deaths after all, but she would never admit that too. Anyway, she did do cruel things sometimes, if there were a lot of wrecks in a short amount of time or she was just in a foul mood. She liked the fisherman even though everyone else hated them. But that was exactly why she liked them. Their job was death, and so was hers. She saw a certain kindredness there, though horribly misplaced. She fancied that they understood death best since it was there business as well, after all. Sometimes the souls of the fish would gather and claim a ship, then she would join in on the fun prancing along the waves of the bow, whispering to them in a storm to follow her - Don’t be afraid I’m here to guide you, I’m here to save you - she’d sing. When their ship rolled and sank she’d laugh wildly and loudly as they howled at her. So she didn’t mind death, or being a harbinger that much. Sometimes at least. What was it then? What was the word they used to call me? She thought. Contrary! Maybe I'm just contrary. She was lost deep in thought, chasing her ideas like Lyn after a school of fish, when the shadow of a small boat appeared above her.

“Thats it Lyn.” She said softly, gliding to a stop. “You wait for me over there.” She pointed to the distance behind the stern. She didn’t want this sailor seeing him. The boat was too small to get away with announcing its fate without being seen. A mermaid was one thing, a mermaid and polar bear was too much. She wasn’t in a bad enough mood to do that to this one. Obediently Lyn swam away and Anda floated for a moment, looking up at the little craft. There was something strange about it. Its square bow and stern suggested some kind of barge or maybe even a boston whaler, but she hadn’t seen one of those in years. It was way to small to be out so far alone. No wonder she’d been called to its demise. “Dumbass” she muttered sorrowfully, then swam for the strange squarish bow.

“AWW COME ON!” hollered a middle aged man in a red sweatshirt, sitting on a cooler that had seen better days, beside a small outboard engine. “Music? Aha! Music means people! Ray is on his way baby.” He swung his arm and the boat whipped around. Anda dove to avoid the propellors. Not that they’d do much besides piss her off, she couldn’t die. She popped back up to the surface and swam alongside the boat. The man still hadn’t noticed her. It was getting dark. Then the engine sputtered for the last time and died.
“Oh no….” Said Ray, pulling off the engines cover. “No, no, no. We ain’t doin this. Now I know I called you a whore a little while ago but I didn’t mean it really. It was a joke. Jokes are funny right? Like us out here. Hey we’re a great joke! Old boat and retard, floating in the bay.” He sang. “But listen, listen, we got fumes okay? So when I pull this cord,” he said, shaking the gas tank, “You’re gonna start. Okay baby?” He stood up and pulled the rip cord out until it caught slightly. “Now… START!” He yelled. His own force flung him backwards so that he stumbled and fell, then jumped up with surprising speed for his age and grabbed the rip cord again. Anda watched from a few feet away off his port bow, her eyes and nose just barely above the surface of the water. This is getting weirder by the second she thought. “NOW START!” Ray yelled again lurching backwards. “Come on baby, come on, come on. START…. YOU…. FIVE…. DOLLAR… ASS… FETISH… WHORE… I… WONT.. DIE… LOST…. IN… THE… FUCKING… SHINNECOCK…. BAY…. AHHHHHH!” Ray fell backwards for the last time and slumped back onto the cooler with a resigned sigh. “Aww man” He said starting to cry. “I knew I shouldn’t-a paid that swedish hooker already. That was a hundred bucks… gone.” Anda decided it was time to finally intervene.
“Excuse me.” She said, grabbing onto the bow and propping herself up on her elbows. “You’re in the Bering sea, not Shinnecock. You shouldn’t be operating a vessel if you don’t know that.” She was being as polite as she could.
Ray cocked his head with a look more of being offended then shocked. “No right to operate a vessel?” He said indignantly. “Listen little lady, Ive been on the water before you were a sperm in your fathers nuts.”
Now Anda was pissed. “I am 798 years old you idiot. And you’re in the Bering sea. Learn to sail.”
“Sail?” He said shaking his head. “Baby this is an outboard, its 2016. Hey you said 798? Hot damn! I always wanted to bang a grandma! Hey how’d you get here…. is that? Wait… is that a tail? You’re a mermaid!” “Yes and - “
“I knew it! Its just like in Sharkzilla Vs. Alien! First theres this crazy storm, then aliens abduct the whole bay and give it as an offering to sharkzilla. One man must stand up to save them all!” He cried jumping up and thumping his chest “I knew it, I just knew it! Hah! Hah hah! Little old Ray saves the world. I always knew I was destined for something great.” “Wha-“
“Nope! Don’t tell me, I watched it last night. Mmmhmm.” He paused to light a Senenca, then blew the smoke out in an impatient puff. “So.” He said. “You’re the mermaid, your actually sharzillas whore, but your gonna be mine, cause we have to save the world. So then once we get that all… taken care of. Heh heh. Taking care of business! Yeah. Then uh…. Hey! You mermaids use condoms? You ever put lube on one of those things? Like a grease gun!” He said, making a farting noise and pumping at the air with his to palms clasped together.
“Oh what the fuck.” Said Anda, pushing herself away from the boat. “I am not dealing with this.”
“…So then i went back two weeks later and they says ‘what! how much porn didja download on this one?!’ I says ‘I dunno’ so they says ‘thats it! No more smart phones for you! you get a dummy phone!’ hah! get it! dummy phone! Hey…. I should call Bob. Your gonna hafta wait on your boat, Bob, Ray ray met a mermaid… Hey, that kinda rhymes…. Oh man, do mermaids have dildos? I always wondered that…” “LYNNNN!!!!”
“…till I looked it up one day and it turns out they do have dildos with a saws all fitting! Can you imagine that? Weeeeeee-aaaaaahhhhh! You’re gonna blow a top! Naw, naw, Blow a gasket! Hah haha! Your a lady how does that work? Wait no, i forgot, your a merlady! Oh yeah you never told me…” “LYNNNN!!!”
“….But I forgot your ‘sposed to tie a piece of line to the bucket, so when you open the door, just the water falls, not the whole damn thing. So it goes THUNK! and near knocks her out. Thats when I figured out no more pranks. Ray, your to stupid to play pranks…”
“LYN!” Anda yelled again. This time the big bear surfaced bedside her with a great splash.
“…They used to make me wear a helmet when I was a kid. No joke….”
“Please maul him.” She said. Lyn looked at her and hesitated. “Please. Just make him shut up.” Lyn seemed to shrug then swam casually over to the boat. In as many graceful movements he leapt up and bit off Rays left arm, then slipped back down under the water.
Ray fell silent and stared at the water then back to his shoulder in apparent disbelief. As he continued to stare at the blood pouring nub that, seconds before, was his arm, his eyes went wide. “…My stranger.” He finally wailed. “Its never gonna be the same now!”
“Gross.” Said Anda rolling her eyes. “Lyn, kill him.” Lyn shook his head.
“Come on why not? Im not allowed too? Can’t we just break the rules? Whats the worst that’ll happen?”
Lyn still shook his head. “Hey Ariel,” Ray interrupted “Im with yogi on this one.” Anda ignored him.
“Can you at least bite him every time he doesn’t shut up?” Anda asked. Lyn shrugged and swam back up to the boat. Before Ray could scream Lyn had sprung from the water and bit off his other arm.
“Hey I didn’t even say anything that time!” Ray yelled as the little boat filled with blood. Lyn looked at him almost apologetically as he chewed and swallowed the arm.
Anda swam to the bow and grabbed the painter, then motioned for Lyn.
“Here,” she said, holding it out to Lyn. “tow him to the ice shelf. I want to torture him before he dies.” With a sigh Lyn grabbed the line and began to swim. Ray watched silently as two nubs protruding from his shoulders oozed blood. From his sweatshirt pocket, a phone began to ring.

VIII

A large swell suddenly rolled out of the fog in front of the whaler and the little mercury screeched as it climbed its slope then descended down the other side.

“Assholes…” Muttered Crackhead Ray as he struggled to keep the boat under control. “Ever heard of reducing speed in poor visibility!” He yelled and straightened his course again. His own echo replied to him eerily through the white vastness. Another swell passed, larger, and then another. Soon they were so large that the tops disappeared in the fog, appearing like walls of water around him. A few minutes passed. CrackheadnRay drained another Yahoo and threw the bottle into his wake. The mercury continued to sputter and screech. it grew cold, very cold, and dark.

“Must have left the inlet.” he said, timed the waves, then spun the boat around. He opened his phone and called Captain Bob.

“Hello?”
“Im gonna be late.” He said, lighting a Seneca Medium.
“Ray you said you’d be here and have that boat fixed an hour ago.” said Bob. “And why the hell is this a long distance call? Is this some trick to get me to pay because you cant afford your bill again?” His mate Matt looked up from the engine room and made a gesture like lighting a pipe with a grin. Bob waved at him angrily and stepped out on deck “We’ve got things to do here, where are you and where’s my boat?”
“Im in the bay with her!” He said, adjusting his course to take another large wave bow on. “Listen! Sounds like a fucking saws-all.” He revved the engine and held his phone to it. “See? Thats why ya call me, Ray is here!” “No, you’re not here and neither is my boat.” “Listen I’ll be there. Just wait five minutes for me okay? I got a little turned around in the fog.” Then he hung up.
Bob stepped back into the cabin of the old mainship yacht, sighed and shook his head at Matt.
“Where the hell’s he?” Asked Matt.
“Probably McDonalds.” Said Bob. Matt laughed. “He tries to tell me he got turned around in the fog. Can you believe that? Fog. On a clear day in February. He’s trying to tell me he’s lost in fog. Like I can’t see the bay from my god damn house. Do you see any fog?”
“Yeah, the fog in his head.” Said Matt, climbing up to the cabin sole. “You still paying me to do this shit?”
“Jesus! Money. Everybody wants money out of me. If I give everybody my money than I don’t have any ya know?”
“Hey, I’m a fisherman, not a mechanic.” Said Matt wiping his hands on his jeans. “Some more beer would be nice too.”
Bob held his head in his hands. “I’ll be right back.”

The little old whaler slipped down into a trough, then back up another slope of seawater. “Long distance?” Said Ray as he put his phone in his pocket, shaking his head. “Crazy old man. He should be givin’ me a medal for being out in this shit.”

Anda VII

When Anda woke again it was still twilight. Either she’d been asleep for two hours, or 24, and she didn’t care which. Her lungs, mouth and throat burned worse but she ignored it. She knew she could procrastinate her duties for another couple days at least before being in the perpetual agony of a sailors death would really bother her. And even then, she could steal some drugs and beer from a coasty cutter or fishing vessel and hide beneath one of the glaciers. She didn’t mind. Some of those strange little pills were pretty fun. She liked the blue ones that made Lyn turn into all sorts of strange creatures before her eyes, and talk like a whale. Also, there was some pretty cool shit beneath the glaciers, she thought. All sorts of caves and strange fish. Sure it was dark, but it was everywhere most of the time, and she had plenty of flashlights anyway. Anda smiled sleepily, thinking of her past escapes. She pushed it for a whole month once and the doomed ship made it back to port. Man did she hurt like hell that time! But she hadn’t realized that if the ship makes it back each sailor still needs to die in a wreck, turning one sinking into 30. And because it was her job she had to herold every single one of them. That was a bad year. Though, she did still wait a few days to complete each wreck. Procrastination was her signature, she claimed, and she was very good at it.
Some time passed and again the world grew dark. Dark and blue and beautiful. A school of fish swirled in the small cave with curiosity and Anda waved them away grumpily. After awhile she heard Lyn swim in the cave and settle on the shelf beside her. He nudged her with his nose.

“Hey buddy.” she said and rolled over to snuggle against him. He moved away and nudged her again instead. “Come on Lyn.” She said. “I got time.” He growled then pushed her clear off the ice shelf that was her bed. A flashlight tumbled with her and hit her on the head before disappearing into the depths. “Lyn what the fuck!” she yelled angrily. “Your gonna break my things again.” Lyn grabbed her by the waist with his mouth and swam for the surface. “OW!” She screamed and twisted against his teeth unable to break free. Just below the waves he finally stopped and let her go. “What the fuck?” She demanded again. He swam a yard away from her and glared.

The same music faintly played above them. Then she noticed it. The song was different. It wasn’t the same song she always heard when her name was called. It was a different one, but one she recognized from long ago. The one she used to hear with her parents in that strange crowded place full of objects floating in the waters. “What the fuck…” She whispered. Lyn continued to glare. She swam to the surface and broke through a wave with urgent force. Around her the swell had increased in size but the wind had died completely and an incredibly dense fog blanketed everything. She held up her hand before her face and could barely make out its outline in the heavy white mist. The music of a place she’d long forgotten was deafening. She dove back under the waves.

“Lyn,” she said after swimming back. “I think there is something seriously weird going on right now.” Lyn grumbled and swam away.