TCOTNK 2.6 The 15th letter part 2
If you haven’t read the first season of TCOTNK the following writings will not make much sense. I suggest you read those chapters first….
Season 1 is also available as an e-pub (compatible with most e-readers) for paying subscribers.
back to chapter 1 (of season 1)
The 15th Letter part II
It's an eight-hour crossing and the ship is big enough to walk past each other for a week, but within ten minutes the ticket booth woman stood next to me. She was actually quite nice. Twenty eight. Student. Last year of literary studies. And pleasantly deranged. Here name is Thalia and she has that melodic northern ring when she speaks.
I almost forgot why I was on board. Unlike most passengers who were noisily wasted within the hour, she did not drink alcohol and had profound thoughts that she expressed in amazement. In a light-hearted tone, she mused about the waste problem, the carnivore's dilemma if it all became plant-based and that time paradoxes from science fiction films were less unthinkable than many people thought while she spooned up a large bowl of an intriguing salad she had brought with her.
We sat down on a lounge sofa in the outdoor bar on the bow. Relatively cool in the shade of an orange sail. Thalia became a summer goddess through that filter. She often gave me a tingling, dangerous look. Let’s just say I had a firm awareness of how long it had been since I’d been with a woman. She was sharp and also noticed my slight restlessness, my attention drifting away from her.
"Are you looking for someone?" she asked, placing a bare foot on my knee.
I smiled, decided it couldn't hurt and shook my head no.
"I'm wanted," I said.
She looked around the inner deck.
“Woman or man?”
“Woman.”
“Sure,” she said.
"And I'm actually following her now."
“Mmm,” she said, “complex.” A deep sigh.
“So it's not me you're looking for?” she concluded questioningly. Not lingering for an answer she abruptly stood up. Gesturing to the bartender to write down the bill she whipped her blonde hair out of the wind and extended a hand to me.
“Are you coming?”
Apparently I looked a bit scared and unsure.
"Don't be afraid," she said, "I won't hurt you if you don't want me to."
I took her hand and let myself be dragged in between the tables. At the dance floor halfway down the empty dining hall she let go.
“There are many more men on board than women,” she said briskly, “and women traveling alone are extremely rare. We'll have her in no time. Do you know her approximate age? Car brand?”
The fellow student at the onboard office found her in no time.
“Catherine Woods,” Thalia reported triumphantly, “can't miss. Cabin 963. At the very bottom, the cheapest crossing by vehicle. Booked just under a month ago. Level 9. Those are vibrating broom closets. Doors with nothing behind them. No one voluntarily goes there unless they are severely sleep deprived, delirious or both." She smiled kindly and gave me the printed data.
“It is of course strategically clumsy of me,” she continued with her hands behind her back so that her breasts tightened under her blouse, “but I am curious about that muse of yours. It's not your ex or anything, is it?”
An hour of wandering later we located her. Reading in the far corner of the à la carte bistro. The only table that Yeshe/Catherine had no view of was the box right next to hers. With a little diversionary maneuver we installed ourselves there. According to Thalia, the kitchen wouldn't open for another fifteen minutes, so my muse hadn't eaten yet. Back-to-back with the pursuer I was following. Catherine? I had trouble with that name. Yeshe sounded so much more natural.
“My summer job is over,” Thalia said, sliding the scooter keys across the table towards me, “that's why I'm going back. Phew, finally! A month in that midget hole is more than enough. My studies are done, I will not read any book for at least a decade.” She raised her arms, “when I got up this morning I wished the adventure would begin today. Bring it on, I shouted at the sky, this year is yours. Ha, I think the green beans from the ground floor neighbour —who was peeking at my knickers— got way too much water. And then…”, Thalia leaned over and whispered looking left and right, “you were my last customer this afternoon.”
She crawled into the corner of the seat, her legs pulled up, arms around them, and studied the ceiling.
'What do you think? Will my wish come true?'
Now let's sleep first and then I'll tell you more.
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If things continue like this, my writing will fall further and further behind events. Still, I prefer to tell without leaving much out. Because it seems like it increasingly has to do with you. As if our lives are connected with threads that I cannot yet see. Here we go again.
I think the the idea was, at least for me, was that we could eavesdrop on Yeshe in that restaurant box. But someone who is reading alone, well you get the idea, she caught more of us than the other way around I'm afraid.
After an initial silence, Thalia once again proved pleasant company. She started a kind of interview, moved close next me so we could do it in whispers and it was certainly not unpleasant to receive so much attention. I talked about painting, about my business during the good years, about invisible things, and festivals and you. We naturally came to my dive into the picture book and your grandmother. Meanwhile, the menu arrived, which Thalia ignored and returned, saying that Ray knew what she liked because this was her last crossing. Two minutes later, Chef Ray joined us at the table. Looked at Thalia like a loyal dog, fervently kissed her palm and sucked her thumb, completely ignoring my presence. She ruffled his hair and he disappeared back into the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later the table was filled by two waiters.
During good food I mainly talk about good food. And when I eat really, really good food I forget everything around me. Ray had gone the extra three miles. Later, a noisy family moved into the box next to us. Catherine/Yeshe was long gone by then.
We were quiet for a while in the lounge chairs on the panorama deck. Why did I go after this Catherine Woods? Because of a photograph of me in her car? Because she looked nice? Wasn't I overreacting? Leaving everything on a whim? Because it was a connection? Probably. Except for me writing these letters and the book of course, I have nothing. Not really. It dawned on me that moment I had left TCOTNK in the camper. Well stored, but still. My plan had been to observe Catherine (to me she remained Yeshe) for a few days to see if she posed a danger to me. That seemed to have completely changed. Should I speak to her directly? Make myself known. Simply ask where that photo came from and what she wanted from me?
Shit no, bailiffs can seem friendly, civilised, but they remain creditors. I couldn't run the risk of being arrested or whatever by exposing myself. The tentacles of money are long. That eternal cursed money.
I fell asleep in my comfy deck chair and had the first dream.
Dreams are not stories. There's no line in them, no narrative. I have great difficulty describing the images I woke up with. Thalia stood over me.
“Hey, are you okay?"
I opened my eyes with the afterimage still glowing on my retina. Flames and triangles. A clear insight that it had to do with air, but it was fleeting. Elusive to language. The word fire does not grasp the being. If you can suddenly see how something is intertwined with so many other things, it loses its individuality. Then you look through the outside, the surface, to the thing behind it. Then...
“Come on,” Thalia said, dragging me to my feet, “I need you on deck. Otherwise you'll still get seasick.”
We climbed several flights of stairs and stepped onto the center deck between the chimneys. The highest platform, where the boxes with inflatable lifeboats are located, where it is best to go if you are at risk of becoming seasick, and where you go for the sunset. We were right on time. My prophetic dream lay extended in the sky. The west was ablaze. I looked at Thalia's face as it lit up in full color. She beamed. 'Beautiful, isn't it,' she said, with sparkling eyes in which I saw the orange ball of the sun. 'That’s the magic. Never the same thing twice.'
“Fire in the sky,” I whispered, walking towards the railing with a deep feeling of significance slipping away. My dream still lingering, just out of reach.
Thalia was dancing with some of her many acquaintances because there was a guy who had music streaming from a speaker. I leaned against the railing, my back to the fading apocalypse. The emotions of this first dream pushing me to turn away, to not look. Telling myself this was just a sunset. Just a dream. One of many. But my chest was tight.
With my attention inward my eyes got stuck on someone and it took several seconds for the scene to arrive.
There she was. A little further to my left. Yeshe also sat with her back to the railing and the fiery spectacle of doom. The woman was a pale pile of misery. Bent over with her arms around her stomach. She looked up as I walked over. She was green. Literally. Ash green. She was seasick. And not just a little. Her face twitched when she saw me. She groaned, flew to the trash can a few feet away and puked her guts out.
Nice to see you too, I thought, and felt sorry for her. The people around shifted away a little. She let out long aahs and oohs between the shock waves, holding on with both hands and not even bothering to keep her braid out of the gunk. The sight hit me to my core. Puffing like a woman in labor, she looked at me through her wild dark hair.
"Raphael?" she asked confused. A hoarse shadowy voice. The tear-stained cheeks and snot on her lips glowed in the evening light. She wanted to stand up, but another series of eruptions forced her back down. Jesus, what a fantastic woman. My initial hesitation and fear of her melted away. Whoever she was.
I called Thalia and asked her to get some tissues or something. I walked over to Catherine/Yeshe and supported her. Which she accepted. Or maybe didn't really notice. Thalia came back with a stack of napkins, looked at me with a look of, what the hell are you doing, and helped the unfortunate woman to a bench that did look out on the rapidly fading day. Catherine sat between us on the couch like a pile of grey misery.
"Look at the horizon," Thalia ordered gently. I cleaned her face and again she looked at me in almost anxious confusion, her breathing took off, accelerated, and it became another run for the basket with Thalia and me in supporting roles.
Soon it became darker and colder. We were kindly offered a few fleece blankets. All our patient could do was yawn. Thalia fed her salty chips from her own bag and a moment later she was lying with her head on my lap and her legs on Thalia's. From under our blankets we saw the stars appear and the coastal lights come closer. We were almost there and Catherine was sound asleep.
Thalia quietly was digging through sleeping beauty's bag. I reluctantly stopped the gentle stroking of the top of Yeshe’s head with my fingertips to frown at Thalia. She smiled back mischievously and slowly pulled out a brown notebook. "She was reading this," she mouthed with a pointed finger. Then she stuck her tongue out with her index finger towards the throat hole and bulging eyes. To indicate what caused the seasickness. I sent back some nonsense gestures. She made a silly face.
I took the offered document. The thick and weathered notebook was filled with delicate but orderly handwriting. It was too dark to read. But I immediately recognized its character. Even though the letters were smaller. I had stared at their enlarged kin for hours. The speech bubbles in the picture book. The Castle of the Naked Knights was written in the same handwriting. This notebook was from Sapi!
Click here for Michael’s next ‘episode’
Two more weeks in Season 2…have you noticed the slow crescendo? The incremental gaining of momentum? This story needed a wide base. As all good castles do. Another thing is their organic growth. Almost none of the plot moves/developments were planned ahead. While writing I missed a lot of clues in these first elements. I couldn't see the shape of the huddled buildings on the battered rocks. I hope you will have the same experience of familiarity later on. This feeling of having witnessed the origins of a thing much bigger than you….