Why did I go out onto the balcony? The waves. That’s why. They were massive. Massive and black and smashing into the side of the ship.
Usually I don’t go out on the balcony, especially after dinner, which tends to run big. I’m a big guy. And when I say big I mean proper big. Swollen ankles. Gout. Sky high cholesterol. Circulation issues like you wouldn’t believe. This makes it hard for me to get out the doors that slide open onto the balcony. They really should make them bigger, it was a first class cabin after all.
I should have said something, actually, about the doors. But then I would have been the big guy who complains about small doors.
It was nice out there. Wild, with the wind and the waves, but nice. Out on the ocean, salt really climbs up your nostrils, but in a good way. I sucked a decent sized breath of salty wind down into my wheezing lungs, and pictured where I was, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is so big it’s like being lost in space. I felt small. I like feeling small.
Maybe that’s why I spend my life on cruises. Maybe not.
At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then I thought a member of staff, one of the men who worked in the kitchens perhaps, had tossed a sack of rubbish over the side. But why would they do that.
I watched it sail down the side of the white hull.
A silent object, falling.
Then I saw the hand. Small and bluish in the dark night, reaching up from the waves, which, like I said, were massive.
Massive and black.
I don’t know how, but I got back through those doors, into my clothes, and into the hallway quicker than a man my size has the right to.
When I look back, I probably should have called the bridge, or whatever they call the place where the captain stands, arms folded, looking over the bow of the ship.
I wasn’t thinking, I was reacting.
And if I’m honest, I saw myself bursting into the dining room, yelling, “a person went overboard!”
I even saw myself jumping into a lifeboat, pulling on the rope until it lowered me down to the black waves, where I would pull that hand, and the life that clung to it, out of the ocean.
I didn’t want to be a hero. No. For once in my life, I wanted to be of use.
Blame my mother.
She’s big too. Big and tough. People like to say she’s evil. A sociopath. But that’s just because she’s pulled a fortune from the earth. I don’t know how she does it. The business she’s in, you have to be tough. Especially if you’re a woman. I know I couldn’t do it, because she’s told me numerous times.
The exact number of times she’s told me I couldn’t do what she does is thirty-seven. Not that I’m counting.
So what could I do. I couldn’t fight her. She’s a brick wall, an immovable object. Another reason I spend my life at sea. That sounds more romantic than the truth, like I’m some sort of adventurer, but you know what I mean.
The corridor was empty, and I rolled down it like a cannonball. I worked up a good head of steam alright. Hit top speed, which for me is about as fast as you hobble when you’re hungover. My breath was ragged, sweat oozed from my pores, my knees and ankles begged for mercy.
By the time I reached the elevator, and punched the brass button, my finger was a wet sausage. It slipped right off, not lighting up, so I stabbed it like it owed me money.
But the elevator didn’t come. An entire minute – which felt like an hour – I stood there, wheezing and panting, my heart forcing blood into clogged arteries. What was going on? Some kind of make-out session, I’d bet the farm on it. Hanky panky. That sort of thing happens at sea. People lose their heads.
The stairs. The ones they use in a fire. They were my only option.
By god it was tight in there. Designed for child labourers no doubt. Sweat came out of me like nobody’s business, cascading down my face, blinding me. I don’t like sweat. To me it smells like luncheon sausage, and I loathe cheap meat. But what could I do. I stopped to breathe, hand on knee, and it flashed in my mind. The hand in the waves. Did it still reach out? Had it sunk? Who did the hand belong to?
I thundered down the metal stairs, slipping, sliding, once onto my behind. I found a door, but it was locked. Down two levels. Another door. Also locked.
I went back up, then I rushed back down. Up and down up and down. Did these stairs never end? Based on the soaring temperature, I was near the boiler room, in the bowels of the ship.
I needed to be up! I gave it one final push. One step at a time, I will my leg muscles on like a team of dogs. My thighs burned, cursed me to an eternity in hell. I was heading down a slippery dark passage. Some sort of birth canal. I was regressing.
And then I saw it, the final door.
I pushed it open. The icy wind lashed my cheeks like a salty whip. I lunged for the rail, but I fear that I lunged a little too hard, for as a tipped over, my hand reaching down the side of the cold steel ship, I saw the tiny bluish hand reaching up to me from the massive black waves.
Text by Rupert Taylor
Photo by Lena Be
27. JULY. MMXXV. PLUM
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