A shadow flitted across the window, and I shuddered awake.
“There’s someone outside,” I insisted, patting at my companion’s shoulder, but he only grunted, once. “We should have gotten a metal gate for the door,” I grumbled. There was no retort.
So I sat up and climbed out of the bed to investigate, sleepily running my fingers through the ancient woodwork on the wall all the way to the main door. I briefly contemplated arming myself with a paring knife from the kitchen, but did not.
We lived in a wooden trailer fashioned from part of the wreckage of a ship called the SS-Ismailia that was found washed ashore. Many things had to be replaced to make the place habitable; what was originally ostensibly the door to the male lavatory was now the door that led outside. However, we retained all wooden planking that were reasonably preserved. We also kept some of the more charming oddities that were discovered with the wreck; an old pipe that used to hang from the Captain’s lips in an old portrait lay in a display cabinet, the ship’s steering wheel hung on the wall.
The main door was still securely bolted. Good. As I turned to go, something caught my eye and I frowned. Was that about twenty gigantic loaves of bread, piled up in a sack on the floor of the kitchen? There was something vaguely wrong with the dimensions of the kitchen somehow, and also about the way food was strewn across the counters, but in my fog of sleep I couldn’t exactly tell what it was.
As my eyes trailed upwards, I saw a hallway where there was supposed to be nothing but wall. Instead of doubting my wakefulness, all I thought about were other possible entrances through which an intruder may enter. This time choosing to slip the paring knife into the pocket of my sweatpants, I shuffled down the hallway, past unfamiliar, open doors to empty rooms, until I came across one that was shut.
I looked up at the metal monstrosity of a door, the crinkle still in my brow. How odd. Somewhere behind this door I could hear the wind howling. Pushing the door open revealed a room with a row of sliding doors with glass panes, and they rattled harshly against the storm. Beyond them the open sea roared and raged, tossing up white spray as it unleashed its anger on the vessel. The room heaved, a door panel slid open, and the wind whistled as it blew unfettered across the empty room, stirring up eddies of dust on the well worn wooden floor. Aghast, I ran to shut it, but the catch that locked the panel in place no longer worked.
Someone coughed politely behind me, and I whirled around to stare right into a pair of green eyes. A man with leathery brown skin, squatting on the floor of a fully furnished room with tall bookshelves and luxurious carpet, was regarding me with amusement. Behind me distant seagulls cawed above a sea that was still and tranquil as can be. I stood for a moment, gaping, before finding my tongue. “Who are you?” I demanded, my shaky fingers feeling my pocket for the knife.
Interestingly enough, he did not seem at all surprised. “We all know who you are,” he said.
“Well, I don’t know you,” I snapped. “Tell me what you are doing in my trailer!”
A twinkle appeared in his eye, but the man proffered no reply. Irate, I was about to brandish the knife when the door to the room swung open and a portly man with a majestic double chin walked in, with a boy as high as his hip tottering behind him. I gawked in amazement, this time at the pipe that hung from the corner of his mouth. The Captain only gave me a cursory glance before directing his attention to the man with the green eyes. They started conversing in a language I did not know, and I could only stare at them in stupendous silence while the toddler gave me interested looks.
Shortly after, the Captain paused, and the man with the green eyes turned to me. “We have always been able to see the past and the future on this ship, and you can, too,” he said gently.
“Then… why did this ship…” I choked on the rest of my sentence as they smiled kindly at me.
“We’ll be counting on you to take the SS-Ismailia places in your time,” the captain boomed, his powerful voice a dull and resonant sound.
As I blinked slowly at him, I found myself staring at one of the planks that used to make up the hull of the ship, now a board on the ceiling of a trailer. The AC hummed, a dull and resonant sound.
“Mmmmfgh?” my companion asked sleepily. “It was nothing,” I assured him—
Well, I don’t know what happened next. It was time for work and I woke up.
茉莉花の独り言 