In spite of her unwillingness, he’d convinced her to get some shut eye in the cabin. The sky was getting lighter, and she’d tried telling him that light soothed her. That more than once, it was the sun who’d hushed her to sleep. It was the sky’s last resort to bring her curtains down.
‘There’s a window in there,’ he’d told her. And it was far warmer in the cabin than out on the deck, where wind was undiscriminating.
Light shed through the glass, as promised, right over her head. A sea of clouds in motion. Still air trapped inside. There, she found the courage to close her eyes and cease the thoughts—if the mind allowed it.
Aric, on the deck, stirred awake. He’d found comfort in any given place; hence, neither the mattress nor the wind had perturbed him. Yet the sky had. The early morning light sparked images he dwelt on. Following her confession about the sun, he couldn’t impede his mind and its imagination.
With open eyes, he could paint the sky with his daydreams. Avalon, lying on a bed of silk sheets, as he assumed, with heavy lids and a lazy glance. She waited for a sky similar to this one; the first peek of sunlight. He thought it backwards for the sun to assuage a sleepless night, but kept on. The more light shone, the farther sleep had gone away from him.
The dreams extended past Avalon and her oddities. He’d been dubious of the claims that there was such a person. One capable of feeling their way through poisonous substances. Even at first sight, his own intuition had spoken null. But the affair was too enthralling to forgo. He thought that even if it turned out to be a lie, he’d have had his fun. But her words earlier were void of lard—which made them seem truthful.
A charlatan would have overstated their ability to the point of unrealism, he thought.
She’d been rather calm about the unordinary. That too could have been a form of persuasion, but his initial—even shallow—attraction for her compelled him to give credence to her pretense. And so he too, worried for her future all the same. As was his empathetic nature, he wore her shoes and let his thoughts become hers. He’d pieced two and two together from his and her conversation with Reed. It was clear she was leaving her hometown for good. It was just as clear she wasn’t prepared and had been rushed into the choice. A choice; it was still.
If he were she; he’d worry most about mundane things which many took for granted. That perspective explained to him her earlier detachment. He weighed everything from her needs to her safety. Without a stable roof over her head, wouldn’t there be a larger risk of encountering ill-intentioned people preying on the slum and its vulnerables? He didn’t see Avalon as vulnerable, but she may become so if she proves to be as unready as she looked. Were they to lose the bounty to another who’d been quicker and smarter, what of her then?
He wasn’t sure she’d like to join his journey to sail the world and chase sporadic undertakings such as this one. At the same time, he wasn’t sure he could accept companionship in what had been so far an introverted odyssey.
He sighed, and his breath blew far; so far it shifted a sheet of paper that’d been lying crinkled on the ground. He stared at the yellow sheet that’d once belonged to a notepad. It had been a while since he’d written an entry. He was no writer or historian, but he tried to write down his life, for it to be remembered someday, perhaps only by himself.
Today, the waters are stagnant. I thought I awoke on a lake. The wind is weak. The boat now relies on still waters. It’s painfully slow. I cannot write any more. My ink will run out. He had written. And his ink hadn’t yet run out.
He closed his eyes for no longer than a minute before the dark turned unbearable. And the sight of a sky hovering between night and morning turned comforting. He had her eyes now. With them came greater understanding.
In the cabin downstairs, Avalon had yet to sleep. But she was resting. She lay awake on the more ordinary bed; her gaze to the hublot where the sky left her enrapt. There’d be no end to the sky’s consolation for her. It was nature’s numbing pill.
Aric stood on deck as carefully as he could, tried to open the cabin door, and stumbled back when her eyes pierced his instantly.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” he said, his hand to his heart, for he had startled more than she who’d heard him walking.
She shook her head. “I think the day’s started.”
He pressed his lips into a line for a second before they curved high. “Care for some breakfast, then?”
He bent down to open the cupboards under his sink, where ingredients pitted against one another, leaving some mangled. He took out a near-translucent grey plastic bag. Avalon tried to peer at it from the bed to no avail. The cabin, even in daylight, remained obscure. He picked out cans, and they clattered beside him.
“I’ve been eager to have this meal,” he said, his hands restless. “Your town has an abundance of tomatoes. They gave me twice the amount I bought. They must’ve really wanted to lessen their stock.” He stood in a curt heave. “Since we are two, the extra tomatoes won’t go to waste. It won’t take long to prepare, but come up when you feel like it.”
She watched him leave, her mind left in minor shambles.
The man is odd, she thought.
Reed had been the kindest soul she’s known. While his kindness was bashful, Aric’s appeared bold and without shame. From the start, all she’d had in mind about him were suspicions aroused by common sense; but her intuition never once sounded an alarm. That same intuition guided her off the bed and up the deck. If ever he’d poisoned the food, she’d sense it. He’d be a fool to try.
Aric sat on the ground, a plastic bag sprawled out in front of him. There were two napkins on the bag, both under the open halves of a baguette.
“Let’s keep it light for breakfast. Were it lunch, we’d be having a baguette each,” he said, as he fiddled with the can opener and a can of corn.
She sat in front of her half and peeked around at his ingredients. She flexed her brows.
“Corn, tuna, tomatoes. What is this marriage?”
“This marriage is a childhood memory.” He paused, his speech subdued. “My parents would make us these sandwiches at the beach. Today, since we can’t keep fresh tomatoes or bread on board for too long: It’s a luxury.”
He poured the kernels into each half as adequately as he could. Then, from his hands, he sliced and dropped the tomatoes expertly. And in one motion, he flipped two tuna cans down. With the same knife he’d cut the tomatoes with, he spread the lump of tuna throughout the open sandwich.
“The last step would be to smash it closed, but I think you’d prefer doing that yourself.”
“I would.”
As he cast aside the empty cans and the knife, Avalon took a wary first bite. The ingredients themselves weren’t appalling, but the combination was foreign to her. There’d been no sandwich at the beach in her childhood. The sandwiches she’d known were held by three fingers, soft, without crust, and served at the dull tea time. Her stomach would grow weak at the stench of cucumber sandwiches.
Her head swung from side to side in a slow manner as she chewed the rigid, cold bread with soft crumb, the crunch and moisture of corn and tomato, and the saltiness of flaked tuna. The harmonious mouthful of taste and texture was a pleasant surprise. She nodded, and it was the most expressive she’d gotten over food.
“There’s nothing more fulfilling than that,” he said before digging in.
Their silence mingled with the waves as they ate, for every bite kept their mouths largely occupied. Avalon held it with both hands, carefully savouring every bite. From familiarity, Aric held his with one hand and pressed the other hand on a plank, his body leaning towards it. Both pairs of eyes were on their source of interest. Sandwich and Avalon.
He watched her fascination with what he thought was a simple grub. He was curious.
“Watch out for the darn seagulls. It’s still early, but if you hear one, just know they’re out for your sandwich,” he said, almost incoherently, for he had bread stored in his cheeks.
She covered her mouth. “Oh, I know about the seagulls. Can you believe they’re also interested in coffee?”
“No. That’s never happened to me before.”
“Well, when I’d drink coffee by the port, there’s this one seagull. I’m sure it’s the same, because all the others didn’t spare a glance at my cup, but this one. Oh, this one would chase me down the quay. One day it landed on the edge of my mug and I lost it. By doing so, I poured all my coffee into the sea. What a waste that was.” She exhaled harshly at the memory.
Aric had been listening intently, all the while he stifled a laugh. He swallowed it even, only to avoid embarrassing her.
“This is the most agitated I’ve seen you be. And now I know we have something in common: our hatred for greedy seagulls.”