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 Means to an End --- Chapter 03
by Nathaniel Perkins
Breakfast is a solitary affair, few passengers are in the midships commissary and those that make the journey kept to themselves. I am earlier than the expected crowd courtesy of my rude but timely awakening. Black coffee and a biscuit with jam is enough to ease the ache in my head and wash the weariness from my eyes. The sun is blazing through the windows with unchecked eagerness. Gazing about the spacious compartment, I observe an assembly line of human waking. Where the flower could open itself and tilt to the light of a fresh sun, my human companions protest the intrusion of the light into their once blissfully dark existence lost only a short time ago. Pushing forth from their caves by the hollow metal clanging insistence of their own close companions, they stumble from one end of the commissary to the other. The middle ground, grubbing and pawing at the server tables of coffee, breads, fresh fruit, and all manner of toppings.
Most drift from this table toward some undecided location, already munching or slurping dejectedly at some morsel while giving the windows disapproving glares. Each seems to come to their senses after downing a bit of food, usually toward the middle of the half of the room past the service tables. They glance around, remembering their world and the existence of others in it. They straighten their backs. Some of the men make a half-hearted, and half-concealed attempts to straighten their hair, one hand juggling food and drink, the other tucking hair behind ears or flicking it away in gestures developed over years so as to become yet another unnoticed tick of individual behavior. A look to either side, and they choose a seat. The dawning recognition that they are amongst strangers yet acting as if they had wandered into their own kitchen at a lazy tenth morning hour on a do nothing weekend amuses me to no end. This is the true side of my fellow traveler I am expecting to see. The falseness of polite society stripped away until bankers, analysts, and physicians alike are stumbling about for their morning coffee. The turtle out of its shell, caught unawares in the throws of habits formed of years locked safe away in a castle of brick and mortgage.
It gives me comfort to see such universality play out on this small stage. Likely they will wear slippers and holed socks in this place as well, if such an action will not shake them from whatever revelry their sleeping minds yet cling and sharpen their wits until they don their social costumes again. This, though, is raw and fascinating. I have a small pad and a pencil with me now. Too many things have happened away from my cabin and my writing tools for me to be caught unawares any longer. I jot notes and feelings and impressions to record in more detail later, after I assimilate the impressions of the day.
Above the commissary, about an hour later, I take in the sun and the breeze from the ocean now fully engaging the world. Coffee, it seems, is a miracle drug and it is quite believable that the population of America today would revolt and war over it as our colonial counterparts fought over issues of tea. Stomach settled properly, eyes dilated to the dazzling light, I cast about to see if anyone else is taking in such a glorious day and also to note if there are any of the walking sea-dead about. A pleasurable mood is ruined fast when it intersects the heaving retches of some wretch. Sickness; another universal leveler, at least on the seas. Street cleaner, bonds salesman, such demarcations of society are stripped away when these poor souls are struggling for a spot at the railing. I think perhaps, that such folk are not allowed up here as a matter of courtesy to those such as myself – enjoying the view after leaving the commissary having been one of the many to gaze out of the windows just below while in the commissary.
Ah, but even such passing thoughts do not stay long in my wandering mind on such a day as this. The ship is slicing through the ocean at a relentless pace. The bow is cutting a splendid rift in the ocean swells, and I spend a few minutes scanning the chop for dolphins or some other such creature known to frolic with ships in the Atlantic. I have seen drawings of whales and dolphins, and I have seen semblances of them in the museums, but I long to see such creatures in their native environment. How strange do these fish appear to me, at once graceful and determined in their course and yet also free to cast about and choose any path before them. The sea is such a wide open expanse of possibility to me, it seems fitting that the creatures who inhabit it would be free-form in life, free in thought and drive and direction - to awake each day and wonder whether to head north or south or east or west). But I wonder, do they even sleep? I mean, what happens to a fish if it sleeps? Does it sink or float or just stay still? My uncle often walks and talks in his sleep, could a fish do the same…would anyone notice the difference? What if all of the fish stupid enough to take the fisherman’s bait are asleep at the time?
I think I have just convinced myself to seek out someone aboard this vessel who can answer such inane trivia. Ah, the mysteries of the ocean; to think I have never voiced such questions before this moment, and all because I look upon the wake of this magnificent vessel and wonder what life would be like living among the chop and the swells. Living for the thrill of bouncing from wave to wave with no human cares, no human attachments, and no human social niceties to dance around and through. Not the fisherman’s life for me, but the fish…and no sleepwalking for truly that must be how they bite; I would not be so foolish as to snap at a sinker and line are I among the waves. No. I would not trade such an existence for the world – for I would already have the world. I have been told that more than half of this world is covered in water. That would be my domain - were I among the fishes.
Ah, the sea air – and on that breath I pause – a faint odor reaches my senses, smelling faintly of something whose familiarity is just out of reach. Thoughts, thinking, floating…what is it, and it comes to me – that faint smell of stale electricity, of alien fires, and nothing I have encountered over the campfires back home. I take in the ship full circle from me, but no visuals accompany that faint drift.
Now that I notice it, I cannot bring myself to ignore it, it is all around me, faint and fainter still. So slight, I would be thought mad for mentioning it I am sure. But I can smell it. I search for many minutes, nearly an hour passes from my revelry of fishes and a life below the waves. I do not believe the scent is coming from the ship. Nothing is amiss, and the crew appears unconcerned. They do not deviate, as I can tell, from their typical esoteric tasks. The ocean itself carries this tang, and it is unwholesome to me. I find myself blowing air out through my nose in short intervals. I take in another bout of coffee and those magic beans overwhelm my newest discovery for a while - enough to enjoy the remainder of my morning.
I find myself on the aft social deck as the early afternoon wears on. I am sure it has a nautical term that I have yet to discover, but for most of the passengers that I encounter, it is called the social deck, or the social for short. Far from a secret location for fly by night trysts, the deck runs the width of the ship, uninterrupted by cargo holds or any of the oddities of ship bound plumbing; no puffing vents or spider webs of cable. There is a small jazz band that plays here in the afternoon and evening hours. I suppose if and when the weather turns foul they can take over for the poor cursed music box in the commissary, but for the moment, they are in true form out in the sunny air on the social deck. A few lively pairs of passengers swirl about in coordinated patterns in the middle of the deck, stomping and pausing and spinning and stepping in time to the upright bass. The sea air must be murder on the strings section, and the brass probably has to do a full clean and polish every night to ward off the patina brought on by the salty air.
I scan the small crowd of sun bathers and fellow oglers for anyone interesting or remarkable. A man, gray at the temple and lined of face is standing back to the scene, staring out into the sparkling waves. I approach and lean against the railing for a minute in silence before attempting to draw him out.
"Have you traveled this ocean before?" I ask while turning my shoulders slightly to indicate my inclusion of the man to my query.
"An excellent question, my friend, and one that I am not sure I can answer," he replies with a squint into the water beyond.
His answer strikes me as peculiar and I think for a moment that he is pulling my leg in some attempt at a jest.
"You mean to say that you do not know if you have sailed the Atlantic before this trip? Was it in your childhood and you cannot remember?" I ask trying to straighten him out.
"Oh, I have sailed the Atlantic before this trip," he continues. "But that is not what you asked and that is not what I answered."
"That is a rather cryptic thing to say, sir." Is he a bit cracked, or in his dotage already I wonder. Perhaps he, like me the day before, is recently recovered from a bout of illness.
"Wilhelm," he replies.
It takes me a moment to realize that he is correcting my sir with an introduction. I follow suit and add, "A pleasure, but how do you come to say that you may not have sailed this ocean and yet have sailed the Atlantic in years past."
And, much to my shock, for I had forgotten for a few minutes, he breathes in deep through his nose and laid a finger to one side of it. "Because that sea air is no sea air I have smelt in my life. There is an element of the unusual to it that I cannot place. And that, my friend, is noteworthy."
And just like that, that faint oddity is back and can not be ignored. I cast about in my mind for something to say to Wilhelm, but at that point I am so flustered by his certainty that I make my hasty departure with a few mumbles of ‘hopes for a safe voyage’ and ‘I really must enjoy this weather while it lasts.’ Of course, I give immediately to the lie by retiring below decks for a full retreat to my cabin and a brace of black coffee.
The afternoon sun is now at such an angle as to cast only a sliver of its full power through my single porthole. A radial slice of light that falls in sharp relief to the wooden paneling of the interior of my cabin. It looks like some ancient sundial set to tell me when great events are set to occur if only I knew the significance of the muted grains and artistic knots and whorls of the wall. I spend a few hours copying and expanding my notes and puttering about the cabin straightening and rearranging my possessions with some twisted vision that the captain or some such figure will be making rounds to see which of his passengers keep his ship in order as he would for his crewmen.
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