The Submarine

 

I’m looking to the big room. Dark, with a big table in front of me. The table is covered by a glass wall. The lights are dimmed, bluish. The man is looking at me although he pretends to be very busy with something in front of him on top of the desk, more like a deck actually; it looks like a deck, yes, it is a deck. 

I keep quiet observing the surroundings and pretending to be still. The room is dark, narrow and longer than wide. Definitely longer. My eyes are tired and cannot focus to distinguish more details on the walls.
Are they walls?  The closest to me appears to be covered with gadgets, clocks, screens and the like. Its electronics looks is distressing, somewhat fretful. The fuzziness of the place with its bluish light makes me worried.

The long passageway reminds me of something.  People moves at the end of it and looks like coming and going out of a hutch.
It’s a submarine. I realize this by seeing all these people moving about. The desk falls in place and become a deck, yes definitely a deck; it looks menacing, it glows once a while with a bluish color and fits my idea of a commando room in a Red October. But why the glass?

I doze off………….

I wake up. I’m trying to get out of the bed and get dressed. I have an appointment at 9.30 a.m. and being here in this submarine it will take a while to get to the city.
I notice the man, the man behind the deck. I feel that he watches me closely. Surreptitiously.   He is busy.  Is he issuing commands for the rest of the crew? Or is he asking for help to keep me pinned to my bed?  My mind does not allow more than a few seconds of concentration and IT shifts gears to other matters. 

I think this might be, probably, a harbor. It may take a couple of hours to get to the city by 9.30.  I must depart soon.  I move slowly but I don’t seem to be able to get rid of the blanket, white and heavy. It keeps my feet well tucked and it’s very difficult to move.

I move. The man looks at me with disapproving eyes. I pretend to be still and sleeping although I am half way sitting (though I do not discern my own body) and bent to my left trying to sit and get to my clothes.  

He keeps typing orders. Yea, he is typing. Definitely typing. His hands are half way between the deck and the glass partition. He looks down, concentrated on his work yet I feel that he keeps watching me.  Is he preparing to sail and take me away from my appointment? 

He moves behind the desk. He looks bluish. He looks like a very strong man, not tall. Not tall at all (5.4 / 5.6 maybe) but he is not fat although he looks like an old refrigerator, stout, heavy-duty. 

A very convincing look of physical power. The man you would assign for guard duty.
His moustache, black like a cheap sweeper takes a lot facial room .His face is markedly tough with black eyes piercing the darkness and I feel them like needles on mine. He is immaculate shaved. 

Clean, no marks on the cheeks or ears (though one has an earring which confirms that this mother is a sailor, and this IS a submarine)  his long hair gives him an aspect somewhat feminine but surrounded by a killer appearance. Not a towering man. Not a Popeye. 

A good size smaller (small-petit son-of-a -gun I call him without moving my lips). 

  I begin to move; my hands are away from me and moving by their own volition untying the blanket. I stare the sailor. He stares back. I freeze. He is moving. He is approaching the end of the deck looking at me all the time. 

He is unquestionably coming towards me.

He talks very normally. I was expecting a thundering voice. A voice of somebody accustomed to shout orders with  a deep, louder bark but he sounds like a female nurse with a nice voice. 

Stop trying to get out of your bed and go back to sleep.
He covers me and once again, my legs feel under a ton of wool, unable to move, paralyzing legs and torso. I feel stuck to the bed. I stare at him, without talking, but conveying my dislike and foulest thoughts. 

He leaves and resumes his place on deck. I feel, I know he is issuing commands to the crew to take the ship to whatever place it’s going. He switches all lights on and the place hits my eyes. Just an instant though. Enough to see that I am right. This thing is a submarine, and they are ready to go.

But so am I mother you! Once again, I begin to move. I cannot lift my legs. I cannot move them, period. The rest of my body is really heavy with that one long-ton blanket.
I keep on fighting. I twist. I bend. 

Tired, I doze off. 

A pair of strong hands is keeping me down. Do not move. Keep still.  Are you okay?  I do not see the person or persons, but I feel them all right. I am pleading for them to leave me alone but to no avail. One of them it’s getting pissed off and says:  Keep still and go back to sleep.
The voice, used to command, (I feel it) it’s loud and clear. With this sailor you do not want trouble. I try to move to probe that I can, but I desist. They are ON me and further movement it’s just not possible. 

I am so tired and yet happy, euphoric.  I fall asleep.
The silence wakes me up. My mind whispers to me: keep quiet. I look at the watch, but I cannot focus. It looks like an elongated tortilla. The hands are like deformed arrows pointing to nowhere. Melting chocolate.

The sailor is there. He plays busy.
I try not to look the sailor – he may be issuing orders behind the deck but with that kind of voice he cannot be a captain. No way. Imagine saying get below deck to a giant-tattoo of a guy with such a gentle and mellow voice. I say the words attempting to sound like the sailor (very hushed though, he may hear them and immobile as I am no way I could defend myself). 

Safety first lad. I’m thinking in sailor terms. Am I a sailor?   Am I lying in a bunk? Am I in sick bay?
My mind is at ease, and I have the feeling that it murmurs:  don’t worry mate!
I keep pondering what to do. I decide to call him and explain about my appointment in the city. He is very busy. I think he is typing yet again.

Definitely typing and drinking coffee. How about that!  I make a mental note to report this to his commanding officer.
I am thirsty, my tongue is swollen, parched, I think. I don’t feel it but I know. I want to drink but first I have to get dressed and prepare to abandon ship! I laugh at the thought. 

How am I to avoid this corpulent son of gun and probably his freaking crew who undoubtedly will help the sailor with their tattooed muscles and wardrobe postures?  Never mind, get to your clothes first. I try to call his attention. Now the sailor ignores me. I use my eyebrows. The rest of my body seems not to respond. Nor does the sailor. I move my head. I send signals with my eyes, eyebrows, and facial muscles. I even try to smile to this indifferent, disdaining sailor. 

Not an officer, definitely NOT an officer. A gentleman would have shown some reaction by now.
He keeps ignoring me. I am tired yet I try once more. He is so busy pretending to be busy. He does not react an inch.
I decide to move my legs. That called his bloody attention a while ago. I cannot. This blanket is heavy. I look at the clock. Impossible to see the time. It still looks like a burrito without the beans.

Time passes thought and I must be at 9.30 in the city.
Well, I decide to call him loud and clear. I shout – with scorned voice - hey buddy I need to talk to you.
He stares at me and starts’ moving, annoyed, clearly annoyed and speaks: What do you want?
What do I want? It should be obvious by now that I want to get dressed. Is he a moron?
I explain to him, slowly, showing a bit of sarcasm, that I have an appointment and that I must be early in the morning in the city.
He watches intensely. He smiles. SMILES!  What a heck, what’s that for an answer.
Now I use my most stern voice: I have to get up. Get my clothes. (According to me, my voice does clearly shows that this is an ORDER! I was enunciating and using very short sentences and easy vocabulary for this sailor I think with a chuckle but not without some aggravation).

Well!  My voice again pierces the room, and my eyes are two balls of hellfire.  I’m getting quite pissed off by now. My mind pictures my face and concludes that any person would get scared to say the least.

I wait for an answer. I am not mad, rather content, and my brain seems not to respond normally to my requests for further annoying remarks. I found myself rather silly. I am smiling too.
Shoot, this guy will think that I am an idiot playing the tough guy with the wrong mask.
Still smiling he checks the blanket and does a peremptory inspection here and there. He pats my hand looks at me and start to leave. 

He leaves.  I should get mad yet again am relaxed.
Happy. Content. I search my mind and try to figure out this situation. But again, a feeling of peacefulness comes back and no longer am I able to demand more effort from my mind!
At a loss and tired of all this I try to respond but my words are adrift before I whisper them. The rest of my body does no longer answer to me anymore. My mind shuts down.

I doze off………
I feel movement next to me; I wake up and see another sailor fuzzing right behind my head. A small torch shines on my face. The light hurts. It moves around and checks the instruments behind me. After a while I see a female sailor.
I seek for the right word to address her but to no avail. She is searching for something. Also smiling and moving things about. She inspects my neck. I feel that some kinds of cables (tubes?) are protruding from it. She checks them and presently she is ordering them in a bundle. They make the same noise as a bunch of marbles being shacked.
It sounds and feels funny. 

I ask her what time it is. She looks to the sailor behind the deck and I follow her gaze. The bluish sailor looks back and moves his eyebrows meaning, according to me, that she must not respond. I ask her once again in a pleading soft voice for the time, adding that I have an appointment at 9.30 tomorrow morning. 

Hell!  She uses the same technique of her fellow deckhand and does not respond. She fakes that she did not hear a sound.
Peacefully I doze off.
Fully awake once more.
The lights are on. The deck looks smaller and so does the room. The sailor is happily drinking coffee, what else I think.
He looks quite friendly now. Immediately he meets my eyes and smile. He mutters good day!

- What a guy, he pretends to be my friend and savior now.  Good day indeed.
-I smile halfway remembering his corpulence and realizing once again that I still cannot move.
Something has changed. The room is mostly white and so are the sheets. The scarce furniture is also white. I try to remember. Where am I? I was in a submarine and now in this small white place.?

My mind does not pay much attention to the fact. I wonder what the heck this is …
The sailor walks towards me. Maybe I get something to drink although somehow, I am not thirsty. My tongue feels all right. My mouth is ready to utter some complaints.
He looks quite different also, in a white uniform with a stethoscope in his pocket. A nurse, a doctor? The earring is not there. The moustache fits rather well under his nose.  The long hair is just not there. 

He keeps smiling and touches my arm. Good afternoon he mutes softly.
Good afternoon? Now he is a clown. I just dozed off and it is afternoon. You kidding me! I look at him and move my eyebrows. He smiles in acknowledgement and begin to wipe my forehead with a special cloth.
Friendly ex-sailor, I think. I smile back and try also to convey my question: Where am I?

I try to speak but Not a sound escapes from my mouth.
He does not understand. He looks puzzled. This friendly ex-sailor does not understand my eyebrows queries.
And now is afternoon! I try to focus the clock on the wall, but that thing looks like the one I saw in a museum in northern Spain. My glasses, maybe I don’t have my glasses. Yes, that’s why I cannot focus. I think I will ask my wife for them. 

Suddenly I fully realize that I am in a hospital. I am in bed with all kinds of tubes in my body. Big bottles of “something” are hanging above my bed, connected with machines and thereafter with my veins. My mouth “contains” another something and so does my nose.
Still peacefully I remember that I was to be helped of something or other. Not very clear but again…
He tells me: your wife and children are almost here. In a minute you will see them.

-??????, my mind races looking for answers., but what was the question again?

Returning to my senses I wonder, fine, splendid. I remember saying to all and each of them see you tomorrow and agreeing that if I could not talk, I would touch them with my forefinger and tap them in a sign that I was feeling right.
I see my family coming in the room. They look happy. I see them very big. Bigger, taller than in normal circumstances. Maybe they switched my glasses? That might be it. I try to talk to them. I cannot. That something is blocking my mouth and throat and does not let me talk. 

I remember our agreement of tapping fingers. My wife holds my hand, so does my son and daughter. Big smiles big time! Big and soft tapping of fingers. One by one I feel them, and I tap my daughter’s, my son’s and my wife’s.
We enjoy the moment with eyes on each other’s, eyes full of joy and charged with tears of delight, happiness, and love.
Tired, oh so tired but I softly move my forefinger again and again to carry my joy and my feeling of being with them again.
My profound love for each and all of them. I love you, tap, tap…
They tap mine and laugh with warm heartedness. With love.
Many days were to pass and finally I could talk with my family and thank the ex-sailor, and all the submarine crew , for his help during an unforgettable night in a submarine.
JCarras.   January 2013
Revised dec.2022

p.s.
The memorable night in the submarine took place in Groningen and it lasted some 6 days in all. More fantasies were dreamt but those I will keep for me forever. My thanks to all the submarine crew, officers, and men/ladies alike, which helped me thru during those dark and bluish nights.