вавилонский голландец Pt. 2
Part two: An Awakening.
I woke up when the bell went - or, I mean, I think I heard a bell - come to that maybe I only think I woke up. I didn’t open my eyes straight away but just rested a bit, feeling my way into wherever I was. I had no idea where that might be. I knew I must have been asleep for a while - there were dreams still making me foggy but, weird I know, I felt good. There was a fresh breeze blowing in from somewhere and over me. I felt hungry I was starving actually it felt like. That got my eyes open more than anything.
It was when I opened my eyes that I knew I must have had an accident or something. I was gazing about and couldn’t think of anything, you know words, whatever, to take it in. A room, I knew that - and I know NOW that it was a cabin in a ship and the room was made of wood, all that stuff. But when I first go up off that bed, I swear I was completely blank - I might as well have been a baby.
But I wasn’t scared. Like I said; weird right? No, I still felt good, sort of rested and clean and hungry still, a real appetite on me.
I also thought I was naked, I could feel the air moving over my skin and, well you don’t need to know any more than that - and I when I looked down I caught a look of myself all pink. But I blinked and suddenly I was wearing clothes, dark clothes, and there were boots on my feet. Something about those boots - it felt good to see them.
Oh and it was funny because when the floor wobbled, I thought it was me! Turned out of course that ships do that. Obviously. But I didn’t even know what a ship was, not right there and then.
I did know that it was bright, not amazingly so but I had to stop my eyes from screwing up against it all the same. So, that was another new thing to me, I had sensitive eyes it seemed, weak eyes.
I kept them open all the same, gazing around the cabin. It was fairly simple, a few cupboards and draws set into the walls, a rail with a towel, a sink. I went over and tried a tap and it worked so I splashed a little water on my face. That felt good. There were no windows the light came in from the door way, the door itself being half wood, half glass. That’s where the breeze was coming from too. Oh that breeze, more than anything I think that was why I wasn’t scared or sick or any of that stuff. Breathing it in - cool and a little damp with a tang of salt, not that I recognised that either just then, but I’m going to stop mentioning what I didn’t know because, well, I didn’t know anything and that will get very boring to keep telling.
The door was heavier than I thought it would be, stiff, and it took me a couple of tries to get it open, but I did get it open and I went through (without really thinking) and - then I stopped.
The Sea.
You ever seen it?
I must have looked real dumb with my eyes wide and my mouth open just trying to take it in - and I couldn’t, it was too big. It was like, can you imagine an ant or a spider or I dunno, but an insect or - maybe a mouse, I don’t like mice actually, at least, I think I don’t - anyway, whatever, and you put some little thing down on a carpet and it would probably look and feel the same as I did then.
I had to close my mouth though, my teeth got cold.
Yeah… ok… the Sea. Stupid words like ‘big’ and ‘deep’ and ‘grey’ don’t get it at all, but it was big and it was deep and it was grey. It rolled over and over and over constantly, hypnotising me straightaway, I just stared as it tumbled out ad away as far as my weak eyes could see. The sky above the sea was the same size and I think I would’ve got dizzy maybe and fallen over if the clouds that made the sky hadn’t been so dark. They weren’t scary dark, I still feel threatened or afraid, in fact it was nice - the clouds kept the light down nicely, so I could keep my eyes open and watch the heaving water.
So I was on a ship. There was a white wall in front of me and I went over and put my hands on it, the wall came up to my waist or thereabouts, not very safe really, but I did it and tossed my head back - and my hair flicked up and around me. First time I knew I had long hair! The Sea seemed to jump invisible from below and right into the air, it was the sea that the wind carried singing up and into the sails. The sails so wide and high that I daren’t look at them.
I think I was stood there for quite a long time, but then I started to shiver so I had to turn and go back - or go somewhere. I decided to follow the little wall and see where it went.
I had to crouch a bit as the water splashed up high and onto the floor, I mean the deck, but I made managed ok. The wall sort of curved it way forward and then in, but I didn’t follow all the way, in fact I didn’t really go very far before I could see more doors and things to my left, and I could smell food. Foooood!
My whole body jumped as my nostrils went Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!
The food smell was coming from a round window set into the wall by a door. The wall itself was a strange one, it ran up for a while, climbing, and then it sort cut off - it looked almost like a tooth.
Didn’t stop me.
I was through the door real quick and inside another cabin. This cabin was a different shape to ‘mine’. It was longer and there were things to lean on, padded and sticking out from the sides. Grey again - everything so far had been white, or grey, but not gloomy. I dunno why not - just wasn’t.
Once I got past the leaning points I stumbled into a table and there was a cup on it with something in it. I picked t up and swallowed it as if I was the stupidest person alive but, it was ok, not poison or disgusting. It was bitter though.
Wiping my mouth I pushed past the tables because the smell was really strong now and I knew there was food behind the next door, a metal door. I had to twist a wheel to make it open, took me a long time to figure that out - and my belly going “Urrrgh!” at me.
It was a kitchen - a galley - (see I really DO know stuff now). There was a sort of open stove with pans and pots and steam and smells and before I knew WHAT I was doing I had grabbed a spoon (and it was hot) and slapped whatever was in the nearest pot onto a plate that was sat by the side of the stove on a work table. The spoon made it harder to eat but I couldn’t be bothered to go searching - I was way too hungry. So I splattered as much as I could onto my plate and sat down and used the hot spoon to eat the hot food and every time my mouth got burned I laughed.
My voice - I didn’t recognise that either, but it did feel like it mine. As the hot food got to work on my innards I started to really try and think - to work stuff out like; who was I, where when and what had got me here and why.
Something bad maybe because, all I could think of were shadows, shadow places, shadow people, and they didn’t feel good in my mind.
But I was who I was. That would have to do for now.
And I was still hungry. I got up and did a proper check of the stove. Don’t actually know what I had eaten - eggs, porridge? I couldn’t tell you. But I noticed there was a shallower pan as well and it was this that had been driving me really crazy. Bacon, I think, now. So I scooped as much of that up as I could and sat back do and used my fingers to eat. It was hot and oily and just the best, licking the traces off my fingers and plate and scoffing it all like a wild thing. Greedy? You try being that hungry!
I finished everything I could get my hands on. And only after, as i sat huddled for a while just enjoying not being hungry, did I stop and wonder whose food I had stolen. I hadn’t seen anyone - or even heard, I don’t know, voices, feet, movement. All I had heard was the sea, the wind, the waft and creak of the sails and hull and a far off bird somewhere.
Who had made this food?
These were not easy or obvious questions for me right then - I didn’t even have the words for most of the things I was wondering about - just an instinct that had me glancing about and cocking an ear for sounds.
Well, I wouldn’t find out anything sat here, so with a sigh I eased my self up and looked for a way out. There was an inward door, another metal one with a wheel. This time it was easier to open, even with my greasy fingers. So I heaved it wide and went through.
This was a corridor, short and narrow with a wall to my right and two doors on my left. Slowly I went forwards and turned to the second door. No wheel on this just an ornate bronze handle that had caught my eye, gleaming as the light from the kitchen struck it. As I reached for it though, the door I had opened slammed shut and I was in pitch darkness. I panicked then, my fingers slipping and my breath hissing out loud in the silent black. I was scrabbling at the handle- my fingers desperate so that when it finally turned I could not free them and so twisting awkwardly I tumbled headlong into the room beyond.
I made only a soft noise - and raising my face quickly I knew that I had landed on a soft floor. It was a dark brown carpet. My hands were shaking as I forced them around and down to lift me up. And slowly I raised my head to see what I had disturbed.
It was a library - I didn’t know that - no, but there was a… memory - and I felt suddenly weak as that word flashed into my mind for the first time. It is one thing not to KNOW - and quite another not to REMEMBER and this was the first time that I understood, I mean that it really sank in properly; it wasn't a question of working things out, of waiting for the answers or of treating all this like it was a dream or a game. I had no memory.
I knew this because the room was familiar, even though I could not comprehend the reality of it, the silence, the smell of the wood and paper and polish. The tall glass fronted cases, the rows of heavy books, the shorter reading boxes piled with paperbacks, the comfy chairs and tables littered with journals and newspapers. It made my brain spin because somewhere, somehow, I had seen something like this before.
My boots left a wake behind them as I dragged myself forward. I stared up at the imposing shelves as if expecting some sort of answer or reply. I did not expect the books from the tables to start flying through the air and so when they did - as if somehow the wind outside had exploded into the room. I was struck hard on the head and body, my hands too slow to defend myself as I cried out in shock.
End of PT 2...