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 Means to an End --- Chapter 09
by Nathaniel Perkins
Morning breaks through my porthole with an agenda, sharpened spears of light stab through the flimsy hide of my eyelids, jab me like I am Gloucester himself. I rise and grump around the room readying myself in a parody a traveler with a destination. As I straighten my hair and tie, it occurs to me that I am hiding in small rituals, doing whatever I can to not face that streaming harsh sunlight, to carry on as if we are not a doomed vessel. It promises to be another uplifting day, I can tell already.
Instead of meeting Smith at the commissary, there is no telling what I might find there if I go now, I bang lightly on his door. He answers immediately.
"Breakfast?" he asks with a wry grin. The sun’s humor has him as well. He sighs, "It should be a show at least."
We make our way to the commissary. The zombies of the previous day are gone and in their place are waddling rabbits, too fat to jump and move quickly, but aware they are caught in a field of foxes and conscious of the need all the same. There are twitches and trembling and distressed looks to the port side portals.
A middle-aged man in a tweed jacket is arguing with one of the servers toward the end of the ragged line. "What the hell is going on? We should be in London by now. Some people are saying we’ve turned around." He points to toward the westerly sun, making an earthbound assumption. "Well? I have business in London, I didn’t take this boat to float around in circles in the Atlantic." He fumes at the man responsible for the tea.
He is right, though, I think with a dark chuckle, he did not take this boat to float around in circles in the Atlantic. We are bound in a straight line for some other port, in some other sea. I pick up a plate and move into the line, straining my ears to catch bits of the other side of the conversation. The steward is discreet as they all are aboard the Centurion. His voice does not carry, but I can extrapolate the context from the outraged shout from Tweed.
"No I will not take it up with my hall steward, the man is a stone-walled ass. What?" Another crewman is at Tweed’s elbow now, whispering something to him. This would be one of the XO’s men set to keep a lid on the boiling pot. "Everything in your power? What the hell does that mean?"
The conversation is having an effect on the breakfast goers, more and more are looking away from their plates to stare at Tweed. There are murmurs, and a woman next to me says to no one, "We’re all lost, we are." And then, realizing she has spoken out loud, the lady leaves the line and hurries out of the commissary wiping at her eyes with a small cloth.
More grumbling, and a surge in conversation, so that the room sounds nearly as lively as my first night in it. A call from the back, "Where the hell are we, then?" and "What’s going on?" The whispering crewman looks around the crowd, bits of fear showing at the corners of his eyes, he does not want to be the one to take the mob. A look toward the sailor, the guard I realize, at the forward entrance. The sailor nods and ducks through the hatch. Reinforcements on their way, I think. Smith nudges me, and points to a table near the wall where we came in. Breakfast and a show for us then, I pull out my ubiquitous notepad while we wait for the feature presentation.
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