It would be fun, my sorority sisters said. A cruise to nowhere. Departing Friday, cruising south toward the Carolinas, then turning around, returning Sunday. Partying. Food. Dancing. Fun. Money I didn’t really have, but why not. It was only a few hundred bucks in the late 80s. I was 21. Living at home with a hoarder mother. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.

As we were led to our cabins, drunk and hungry wolf eyed men scanned us as prey. Their looks made me feel greasy. Why was I here? I asked myself.

“Hey baby, wanna do a line in my cabin?”

I shook my head and walked by.

My roommates got seasick once the ship hit the deep water. I could feel it, deep within my gut, the deep versus shallow. I loved how it felt, the ship being in the warm embrace of the Atlantic.

The buffet dinner was excellent. So much better than college food. A reporter stood in line along with us. She was sent to do a study about this exciting way to spend a weekend. I was thinking of going into journalism but I knew I didn’t have what it took to be a Brenda Starr.

We found out that a high school class was on board, celebrating their senior trip. We were pissed. We guessed it was cheaper than Disneyworld. There was no way these kids weren’t being served alcohol so that was a mess.

The dance party was crowded and hot. The drinks were paid for the whole trip so I spent our couple of days in a drunken haze. Alcohol tends to magnify one’s mood, so I became more introverted and spent the last several hours alone on deck, watching the waves, worrying about the future.

As I look back on it, the trip was a terrible waste of money. I spent the rest of the semester broke and depressed.

Cruises. I’m not a fan.

“Finally!” Woyd said, tossing his luggage anywhere in the room. He leaped on the bed in relief, feeling his back cracking in a good way. “No more random calls for a while. No more slapping cuffs on people’s wrists, or heavy investigations…”

“Am I not something you’re relief to see too?” Vania questioned, sitting her luggage next to the bed, then lying next to her husband.

Woyd glanced over at her with one open. “Eh. I see you everyday.”

Vania mouth gaped open, as if surprised, then jokingly hit him in the chest. They both chuckled.

“Aye, I’m going to go take a shower.” Woyd rose up.

“Okay, I’m going to go get us something to eat. I’m seriously starving.” Vania said, rubbing her belly.

Woyd gave her a nod as he entered the bathroom. The bathroom was incredibly neat and put in place as everything was easy to find. The only flaw the bathroom had was no toothpaste, but luckily he brought his own just in case.

The shower knob ultimately confused Woyd for a bit, hanging pendulously downward instead of just a simple teardrop shape, that had red on one side and blue on the other at home. He reached to pull it upward, but the handle declined to move. So he tried pulling it to the left, only to be declined there too. Of course, his final option was to move it to the right, which didn’t work.

“Are you kidding me!” Woyd shouted in frustration. He sighed, then decided to pull the knob outwards, making his stomach drop as he almost thought he broke it.

“Oh shit!” He murmured to himself.

He attempted to twist the knob acutely, allowing light bullets of water to trickle down from the shower head. Woyd wiped his forehead with reassurance, twisting the knob obtusely, waiting a few minutes for some warm water.

In the process of stripping off his clothes, he heard his wife slamming the with full strength, screaming for his name. Woyd quickly threw back on his shirt, then rushed outside to check on the commotion.

“What going on?!” He shouted as his frantic wife struggles to get her words out, which she instead points at the door.

Woyd heard some type of ferocious beast banging on the door like a maniac, so desperate to barge in. The banging went on for a few seconds until the supposed beast saw other people bustling down the hallway and decided to set its attention on them instead.

Woyd glanced at his wife, whom stood extremely petrified.

“What’s going on out there, Vania?” Woyd loudly whispered.

Vania kept her mouth shut, watching the door like a patrolman, her body shivering unmanageably. Woyd took it upon himself to slowly approach her, holding her hand tightly, speaking with his eyes that she’s safe with him.

“I was waiting in line for food,” Vania began deliberately. “Then all of the sudden… I hear some type of ruckus far behind me. Plates shattering on the floor, tables being flipped over, and people being… devoured by other people.”

Woyd widened his eyes as he heard a screaming man zooming the down the hallway being chased by another beast.

“The devouring monsters had blood gushing out of their mouths,” Vania continued. “Their skin looked dead, and their glaring eyes looked so… soulless and… carnivorous. One chased after me up here.”

“Well, are you hurt? Did it touch you?” Woyd frisked her worriedly.

Vania held his hands back and told him, “I’m fine. But I wanna stay in here.”

Woyd glanced at the door, then back at Vania. He nodded his head suggesting the couple sit down on the bed as they heard a woman banging their door.

“Help me! Help me, please!” She screamed with terror.

The married couple heard the beast pounce on the woman eating her flesh viciously. The beast ran away ensuing the woman to cough up blood. They heard her climb to her feet and began banging on the door while roaring just like the beast that bit her. Her strength caused her to cave a hole in the door and her retched face was exposed.

“And now, please welcome… Lola Starbuuuuurst!” said the host into the mic, his voice booming across the auditorium.

The audience clapped and whistled as Lola Starburst walked on stage, clad in a canary-yellow, lycra dress, diamantes, and a huge yellow feather boa.

“Let’s hear Lola’s dulcet tones then, shall we?” Harry said, slurring his words a little. His lips tried to find his curly, pink cocktail straw as his hat fell off into the gigantic bowl of nachos sitting front of him.

“Harry!” Lisa said, laughing so much that she fell off her seat. A passerby helped her up from the floor.

“Sorry - just a little tipsy,” she said with a hiccup.

Lisa screwed her eyes up and tried on focus on the hazy… yellow… fluffy thing on stage. Was that a pineapple on her head?

Lola Starburst began to warble away as the crowd (most of whom were in various states of inebriation), stood up and clapped out of time to her Calypso melody.

“Is that ‘banana’ song by Madonna?” Harry said, finally finding his straw, as Lola shook her maracas and sang about ‘going bananas’.

“Yeh, Dick Tracy!” Lisa said, pointing at him with a big grin.

All of a sudden, the entire room tilted. Tables and chairs toppled over the audience, and people screamed as they crashed into the stage, breaking ribs, and being knocked unconscious.

Lola’s pineapple-hairpiece went flying off the stage as she fell through the curtains, revealing the next act in various stages of undress as they got ready for their performance. And all the while, Lola’s backing track played and played, trumpets blaring.

The ship tipped more and more. People piled up on top of each other, the stage acting like buffer for everyone and everything that had toppled in that direction.

The tannoy came alive with a rather hysterical, male voice.

“This is your captain speaking,” it said, voice trembling and seeming far more high-pitched than prior announcements. “We’ve… urr… hit a spot of trouble… seem to be being sucked in by… what looks like… a giant... whirlpool… uh… trying our best to steer away from it… urge all passengers to hold on to anything large, that’s fixed to the boat…”

The tannoy fizzled out.

“I knew we shouldn’t have come on this trip!” Harry said, as he held on to the base of their small table (one of the few tables in the back that was bolted to the floor because of its shape). “What did I say about the Bermuda Triangle? What did I say?”

But Lisa didn’t reply. She was too busy focusing on keeping her hold on the table base. And she closed her eyes as the ship tipped more and more onto its side until she was hanging from it vertically.

——

Lisa opened her eyes groggily to Harry who was slapping her cheek lightly.

“Alright, Harry, stop it!” she muttered, waving his hand away.

“Ahhh thank goodness!” he said, sitting back on the floor and breathing a sigh of relief.

Debris was strewn everywhere around them. Many passengers were lying on the floor, injured. Others were milling around, looking lost or trying to find their loved ones.

“Come,” Harry said, helping Lisa up, “they’re asking people to get out the ship ‘n wait outside. Safer there.”

They followed the trickle of dazed passengers to the exit. Both of them sucked in a breath as the vista opened up before them. Nothing but flat, wet sand stretching for miles in every direction.

They each slid down some kind of enormous, inflatable slide and were met by a dischevelled attendant, who helped them up and handed them each a foil blanket.

“Where are we?” Harry asked the attendant as he handed them each a small bottle of water.

The haggard attendant looked around, fear in his eyes, and shook his head, “We don’t know.”

They walked towards the other passengers who were all sitting in a group, a fair way away from the beached cruise ship (which, Harry noted, was leaning dangerously at an angle).

They plopped themselves down beside an old lady with wiry, dark grey hair, who was knitting quietly. How she managed to get those needles down that slide, Harry would never know.

“Oh, it’s obvious ain’t it?” the old lady said when they asked her what she thought was going on. “We’ve gone through to the other side!”

“The other side of what?” Lisa frowned.

The other side of ‘what’, indeed…

That September was a particularly hard one. It meant that Charlie had been dead for a fourth of the time that he had been alive, and that Babs had been living without him for a fifth of the time she had been alive. It also marked the twin’s fourth birthday. They were turning into great kids with great personalities. Brevyn and Abigail decided to take them on the very first cruise. They figured they would be old enough to remember it when they got older.

They went during October, when it was still warm enough to swim. The cruise was five days long, and travelled to the Caribbean. Josh drove them to the port where they would leave, the twins bouncing in the car seats from excitement. Boarding the ship went relatively smooth, considering they had four year olds running around, getting into other people’s business. Thankfully, most people found them cute and laughed off whatever they did.

Three days into the cruise, they ran into some bad storms. During one of the lulls, when it was just drizzling, Brevyn and Declan were so anxious to get out of the cabin, they put their swimsuits on and went out into the rain. Isabella was coloring in her coloring book, and Abigail was enjoying some chill time on her phone, unaware of how much time was passing.

Brevyn and Declan made their way to the railing to look over at the dark sea, when the clouds suddenly burst out with more fury than they had before. It was all Brevyn could do to hold on to the railing with one hand while holding a screaming Declan in the other. An employee made her way over to them with life jackets in hand that they managed to put on.

Nothing else could be done until the bout passed, so Brevyn readjusted his grip on the railing and braced his feet. A particularly powerful gust of wind rocked the boat, and caused a huge wave to splash onto the deck, knocking furniture off into the depths below. Brevyn’s grip loosened as he tried to hold on to his young son. But a second wave, almost as powerful, hit him straight in the back, making them tumble into the raging water below.

Racing towards the ship Like a car towards the finish line The massive storm hit As fast as a chill runs up a spine

It cast a deluge of rain And massive waves upon them They first slammed against the stern Then up against the bow stem

The ship rocked along The suddenly changing current It swayed left and right Like a slithering serpent

One massive wave Dragged the massive boat Down into the depths Where it’s crumped up like a bad note

And all the people begin to drown And become trapped among the water As they bang the windows and scream To no avail, as they become the slaughtered

The gulls float on the inward coastal breeze. Perfectly content with their position in the world. Up high, above the waters break. Not letting the force of the open ocean winds push them back. Instead, they sit in suspended animation, awaiting for the perfect time where the winds push them on. It’s a funny thing, watching birds. It isn’t any different than people. We go about life the same way, up against a force that we can’t see but we feel. When we feel high, we can’t realize we aren’t moving, but we are content.

I have no idea why I focused on these birds for so long, it’s like part of me wanted to be up there with them instead of sitting on the starboard upper deck of this damn cruise ship. It isn’t a vacation, it’s an escape. A final ditch effort to try and fix things, and when it all fails, as it seems to do, It ends. I had been convinced this time would be different, that life would be so freeing out on the open ocean, and here I sit, surrounded by drunk love birds whose only thing on their minds amid this vast ocean is how much booze they can drink before the next dip in the hot tub. Shit. I’d rather be with the birds.

My wife, is a wonderful woman. The kind of woman who glides into a room and people just notice her, want to talk to her, to be in her presence. I am quite positive that she is lounging on the port side pool, drink in hand, telling a story and having every ear within earshot fully invested into what happened at the last company function before we embarked on this “fantastic and exciting step in life” as she had been saying since we booked the tickets.

When my gaze finally broke from the gulls, I looked out at the water, then to my left, and then my right to find I was completely alone on the observation deck. “If this isn’t a perfect summary of my life, I don’t know what else is” I thought as I slowly rose to my feet. I turned to the seagulls, as if to make them aware of my presence before I depart for the evenings scheduled event, a pool side movie, on a big inflatable screen, probably a poor boat pun movie like Captain Ron or Overboard. We are cruising, at a steady 18 knots in the middle of a vast ocean we know nothing about and I’m about to spend my evening pretending to be excited about a 30 yr old movie on a boat.

Overboard, maybe that’s the answer. The gulls seem so free and they aren’t attached to possessions or trying to hold a marriage together that’s been long falling apart. Maybe if I just jumped. Maybe it’ll end, maybe I’ll get sucked under the cruise ship, that would really be freeing.

I look over at the staircase, my wife is walking up with a group of friends you would’ve thought she had known her whole life, but they were strangers. No doubt. That’s the trap, you feel included in her life but you’re basically just a blank face. I should know I’ve been married to her for the last five years and all I feel anymore is exhaustion.

“Wade, Wade honey please come say hi to Charlie and Michelle and Tim and Linda.” She says from about 25 feet away, “Charlie is in finance as well, says he would love to pick your brain.”

“Hello” I say reaching my hand out, but before I can shake who I am assuming is Charlie’s hand my wife buts in and says that “we all are going to the bar down below, having a couple rounds of shots and then moving towards the pool to get a good view of the screen, Overboard is one of my favorite movies …” she goes on and on, but I don’t listen, just as fast as they walked up to me they turned around and I made my move.

I didn’t even think, I just reacted. It was instinctual, maybe I was a fucking bird in my past life but I never quite figured out the flapping of my wings to get the draft to let me soar, instead I crashed down hard like a pallet of bricks dropped from a crane.

I like to think she saw me jump but I doubt it.

The ship stalled for a moment at the sight of smoke. It had not been on the island before, as the ship travelled slowly between the frigid waterway somewhere near Sweden. The harsh islands were plentiful but for the most part, uninhabited and uninhabitable. This one was a huge spite of black rock, jutting into the crystal clear sky. A small forest covered half of the island, the roots finding some meager purchase on the slope. Even the waters seemed darker, as if they reflected the inhospitable character of this unknown archipelago. It was completely natural and some of the more superstitious tourists and sailors believed the islands were more than a bit supernatural, inhabited only by the spirits of dead pirates that had met their doom.

Supernatural or not, there was one feature that did not belong. The smoke, black ash of fresh and wet green wood giving way to the thick white clouds of dry sticks. The ship had slowed to almost a complete stop, the engines idle. Tourists noticed the sailors hurrying around on the deck, moving towards one of the orange lifeboats at the sides of the ship. They watched from the comfort of the lido deck or private balconies in mild curiosity as one of the day-glo boats piddled its way to the shale shoreline. The ship finally stopped and as the boat approached, leaving white stripes into the water in its haste, the captain stepped out onto one of the decks along with several crew members in white coats. The passengers were pushed back, guided away from the boat with gentle nudges but it wasn’t long before the ship was alight with gossip.

A castaway had joined the cruise.

Day 46

Feels like I’m supposed to start this with ‘Captain’s Log’ or something. But I’m not the captain. The Captain is not really the captain anymore—No one captain’s an object that simply floats with the tide—and she has long since given up on providing us with updates or reassuring words of sea-wisdom.

We just float.

And float.

The strange thing is that I don’t even know why I’m still writing this, or if anyone will ever read it, because everyone, and everything outside of the confines of this vessel, seem to have disappeared. This, of course, cannot be a thing that really happens—right?—so the hopeful part of me writes this assuming someone, somewhere, at some time will read it.

But the longer this goes on the less likely that seems to be. Comms are still down. Everything. Radar. Everything. None of it works. Mr. Van Morten, a retired science teacher who has been helping with trying to set up a desalination pump thinks it might have been caused by the sun. Or a cosmic flare. Something like that. But, I don’t know. Seems like someone would have found us by now.

Day 52

We’re running out of food. The cruise was supposed to last two weeks, not two months. Even with the reserves and what we’ve been able to catch, it’s not going to last much longer.

A few of us had to put a crew member into a holding cell. They apparently normally use it as a drunk tank, but it works either way. He was a machinist or something. He was trying to kill a passenger, rambling something about hoarding.

I fear it will get worse.

Day 58

The Council is talking about a lottery system. We’re debating ending people’s lives to try to preserve the remaining food. I don’t want to be a part of this, but if I lose my spot or speak out, it could put Brenda at risk. And the truth is, if I do the math… I don’t want to say it. I’m still holding out hope.

Creepy thing is, some people are talking about cannibalism . They’re saying like, “we can’t resort to” or “if we don’t do something,” as though they’re not the ones actually considering it.

I made a crude tomahawk for myself and a knife for Brenda out of stuff I found in the galley (since Council is still counting silverware after each meal). My daily prayer is that neither of us have to use them.

Day 67

There was a murder. Murders, I think, we haven’t found the McDonahues. We’re getting enough fish now, mostly, to supplement the last of our rice. But it’s not a food thing, anymore. Something else. Something primal has taken over. I don’t let Brenda out of my sight, but the longer we’re out here the more I wonder if it won’t be her doing the killing. Something has changed in her as well. I wonder, sometimes if

Day 80

The barto can be Ren for deep water. Land for the horiZOon, but not the thing because Gor came from ?t see And suN befause oeow is runnnin out. I dobt know how m

Day 0, NC

I don’t know what day it is. There is nothing about this, whatever this is, that I can say I know for sure at all. If I had to guess, I’d say we got close to maybe 100 days adrift, but again, just a guess.

We should be dead.

Many are. I’m working to catalogue that now, to record their names, even the ones that died bad—the killers and criminals and crazies that had to be eliminated. That I had to help eliminate.

I don’t want to forget that, to forget what we became in the face of slow death.

I will work to record, as well, how we came to survive, but I feel that story will need more space than I have available in this sketchbook (that I had originally intended to use for sketches, which seems so silly now).

I’ll stick to just the high-level details. I don’t know who first saw them. But when the voices called out, I assumed it was the latest in a malnutrition-based mental episode. To my surprise—to all of our surprise—it was people. Real people. Real, living people with real, tangible boats.

They looked up at us from their wooden vessels as though we were gods. A primitive tribe, the closest thing I can think of as comparison are the Vikings of old.

I don’t remember much, save for flashes, gauzy visions: Being carried, water, food, laughing children, warm fire, a dog.

I don’t understand their language, but they are kind. They feed us, provide us shelter, and seem infinitely interested in the smallest things: a key chain, a baseball cap, a dead iPhone. It’s as though we are some alien race from another planet the way they look at us.

Day 10, NC

Mr. Van Morten is sick. I don’t know if he will last much longer. (He is the one that told me to start recording our history again, and to start at Day0, our New Chapter he called it.) He has been rambling something about the spacetime continuum and some other Einstein stuff. Not anything I can understand, but he’s convinced we were saved by real Vikings.

I don’t know what they are, but I’m glad they found us. I hope to get home soon. I need to find Brenda’s mother, to tell her, I don’t know what I’m going to tell her. I’ll probably lie, but if I do, it will only be out of kindness.

[Excerpts from Nordic Triangle: The Missing Cruise Ship Papers, Penguin Collins, 1987]

COViD 19 oh nooooo

It starts with Gentle waves Rocking ship Kind winds

And goes to Rising currents Raging seas Biting breezes

Then ends up Broken rails Floating lives Sunken remains