Harold was finally able to close his eyes in the small cot that was packed into the living quarters, he felt the submarine rocking gently as it moved through deep silent water. The electric motors made a kind of hum that he could hear everywhere. Still, he felt tired; too tired to let any of the million of things that should have kept him from closing eyes and drifting into a deep sleep. He closed his eyes and felt pulled into it, like a fish on a line.
He opened his eyes and could feel himself dreaming. The moon was full and swollen in the night sky. He drifted in a sea calm as a bath, but deep and wide beyond his comprehension. Yellow rubber ducks bobbed around him.
In the waters below him there was a dark cylindrical shape. It got bigger until he was in the center of a massive shadow.
He was able to make out rows of massive teeth as the giant maw raced up from underneath him.
There was no action, no right answer, just death open mouthed and rushing towards him. He felt nothing but fear as jaws and darkness surrounded him.
There was a familiar smell of paper and ink. He was in a library sort of. It felt like a dream, until he thought about libraries, then things sharpened a little; and he was there. He wasn’t sure where ,there, was. He felt grounded to something, like the carpet was holding onto his feet or maybe the book shelves held him there.
He heard a deep heavy thud; he turned and saw the box rocking back and forth, rattling the heavy metal chains that creaked as they moved. They were wound tight around thick old dry wood.
Something made a low guttural growl before making a scratching sound like razors digging grooves through wood that split slightly. Harold could see two wild, angry eyes. Then something made a shrill scream as it flung itself against the heavy wood and steel causing a split wide enough to see a mouth that yawned open to let out another shrill scream.
Harold’s eyes sprung violently open to another morning, staring at the back of a top bunk. He could feel his heart beat in his ears as he worked on relaxing his fists. The cabin was empty. He worked on trying to get his body to understand that a panic attack would not be helpful. He felt like it was almost separate; like an animal that lived more inside him than out. He looked at the clock on the wall and watched the minute hand move and listened to the clicks.
The ship was cramped and had a certain dampness that made the air cling to his skin. The smell of stale air was hard for Harold to get used too.
but
There were other smells too. Harold thought he smelled black coffee, there was a fatty bacon smell, and the smell of something sweet. He also smelled something else. It reminded him of college campuses and liberal arts professors, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He thought he even smelled fried potatoes.
Harold got up and put on the bathrobe the Captain gave him. Nothing on the sub is a far walk, and he quickly found himself in the galley staring at an empty seat. The rest of the men were sitting at a small steel table and had plates piled high with ham and cheese omelets and bacon. There was a coffee machine at the end of a steaming stainless buffet table. Fresh doughnuts were piled on a plate next to the coffee machine.
He watched Patrick twist open a thing Harold thought was a pen. Inside was a little ceramic cup. Patrick opened a little jar and scooped what looked like honey into the little cup before screwing both ends back together.
Patrick hit the center button a few times; and it lit up, blinking blue. Harold was halfway through his breakfast, when Patrick put one end of the pen in his mouth and inhaled deeply, until the blue light began to flash. Patrick held his breath for a moment, and blew out a cloud of pine scented smoke that blew across the breakfast table.
Harold watched the cloud roll over the table as Eugene shoveled bacon into his mouth, ignoring the world and in a momentary bliss.
“What did you just do?” Harold asked.
Patrick laughed and gave Harold a smile before handing him the pen. “Try a bit, here, hold the button down and suck” Patrick said.
Eugene looked over at Harold “Suck on it like the rent is due,” he said as he shoveled a large piece of bacon and eggs into his mouth.
Harold pressed the button and inhaled. At fist he just tasted pine, and then his lungs began to burn.
He coughed and wheezed, until spots began creeping into his vision. Snot and tears welled up so bad that he needed a napkin to wipe his face.
It took two cups of coffee before his throat would calm down.
Patrick giggled as Harold’s pupils became small black dots and his eyes began to go bloodshot. “We modified the life support systems to make a little grow lab in the engine compartment. The hydraulic press is great for making dabs.
“Making what?” Harold said as he felt a sort of buzz blow through the back of his ears. He could feel himself start to sweat.
“You just had a dab,” Patrick said, pouring a thick line of sugar directly into his coffee.
“A dab of what exactly,” Harold said feeling his head might float off his shoulders.
Patrick began to giggle, holding his sides. It was infectious and Harold felt himself sort of laughing along when he wasn’t sure he had the joke.
“It’s a dab of dab lunch sack boy,” Eugene said in between gulps of black coffee.
This sent Patrick into giggle fits and it took him a moment to calm down. “Dab, concentrate, and wax are just names of plant wax extracted from weed plants. It’s how we keep from killing each other.” Patrick filled the pen again with dab and handed it to Eugene who inhaled deeply, until the button blinked. He exhaled a thick cloud and smiled, wisps of smoke clung to his wiry beard as he did. “That slays the dragon for a bit,” he said.
Harold felt something loosen inside his chest, like a balled fist that had been clenched had relaxed. His head felt as though it were a balloon, bobbing about his shoulders and chatting about middle management.
He sort of felt like a middle manager. There was a certain comfort in the job that he missed, because of the office politics and the general sense of dread everyone always carried around with them at the firm. Harold used to think that it was just that office, but every company had it in the same way they all had cubicles. There was this general sense of dissatisfaction that sunk into the carpet; everyone just ignoring it as the stench wafts down the halls.
He wasn’t in a tin can of optimism, but somehow the cold metal walls of a submarine were better than the office. It was like the world was a little less black, and he wondered if it was the pen or the quiet camaraderie.
The day had an easy cadence with everyone cleaning up and moving on an unknown agenda that included game systems. He felt like a teenager over someone’s house when their parents were not home as they smoked wax and shot at each other with fake guns. Every time Harold died, he found himself giggling. There was something sort of satisfying for him in getting second chances.
Patrick crept back to his room, which had been closet for something when the ship was run by the navy. . It was just big enough for his cot and for Susan. The Captain had brought her back in a box after a recent salvaging expedition. She was covered in silt when they found her, Her hair was matted. She looked like a sea witch. Eugene had screamed when he saw the box saying that it looked like his mother.
Patrick stole it one night from the garbage hold and spent his spare moments cleaning her up, fixing her, and doing her hair.
In the end, she almost looked real, if you ignored the dead eyed stare, lack of skin variation, lack of movement, and her plastic-ness. Patrick found he could overlook all of these properties, because this one didn’t hate him. It couldn’t get sick. It couldn’t die. When he got high enough, he could pretend it listened.
“You know I was going to strangle myself,” he said looking over at her expressionless face. “The Captain caught me and asked me what I was doing. I had to grab my dick and I said something about auto erotic asphyxiation. I don’t think he bought it because he brought me you.”
Patrick turned on his computer and began to type. He looked over to where she sat cross legged in the corner. He had opened her mouth slightly to try and make it look like she was smiling. It looked more like she had a stroke, but it didn’t matter. It’s mouth might never say I love you, but it would never hate him either.
“You know I think I was born with something missing. Some part that was needed to be comfortable,” he smiled at her and leaned back in the cot making it creak.
“I thought I found it in love once,” he said staring up from his cot at the metal ceiling. “People promise forever when that might not be much time at all,” he said.
He looked at her sitting in the corner. In the dim light, she almost looked real.
“I know your not what they call real. I don’t feel very real either. I feel thinned out most of the time, like a ghost in the corner.”
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