Ghost Ship

Author’s thoughts: I have no idea why I wrote this silly piece of story, if it is qualified as one. Skillessly attempted and filled with ill-suited symbolisms – that’s what it is.

From the platform, Dolore catches a glimpse of a silhouette standing in the ship’s control room. He squints his eyes, trying to get a clearer look at the man’s face but could not. The room is just too dark.

Quickly, Dolore rushes to the bridge, eager to meet this first, and perhaps the only person on the ship. This man may be able to shed some light on this mysterious vessel on which they are sailing.

Moments ago, Dolore woke up from his sleep, only to find that he was in a cabin of a ship. He felt exactly as confused as Dorothy she was blown away from Kansas, with the only difference being that he had not the faintest idea of how he exactly got there. No, not even now.

There is countless number of cabins down the never-ending corridor which is hung with elaborated photo frames on the walls on each side. Oddly, all of the frames were empty. No photos.

He searched the cabins, but each one he entered was just like the one in which he woke up: no windows, no tables, no chairs. Empty as a vault.

*****

As he approaches the door to the control room, he could feel his heartbeat reverberating through his body. His chest is rising and falling profusely and his breathing is deeply laboured as he pushes open the door, only to find himself starring into an empty room!

No! Where are you! Dolore cries.

Even though the room is relatively so empty compared to a typical control room, it mercilessly drains away Dolore’s voice. There isn’t even a faintest echo. That even makes him feel more nervous and confused.

Where is the man I saw? Coul he be the captain of the ship? Otherwise, what is he doing on the bridge?

Now that he thinks of it, perhaps the silhouette was just a self-delusion; a phantom which his mind projected in order to comfort him that he is not alone. Unfortunately, the naked truth is that he is alone! Dolore may be the only person on the ship after all. That is the quintessence of denial. In the process of deluding himself, the subconscious mind offers false hopes and when the illusion is seen through, the consciousness is subjected to excruciating pain.

Dolore rummages through a stack of documents on the table in the attempt to search for some clues. But, he is so shocked to find them to be blank pieces of paper!

Please! What is happening?This is just getting repetitive.

It is then, perhaps by chance, that a hefty book on the table falls to the floor. Its hard cover is made of leather. Ship’s Log, the golden letters embossed on it read. At last, Dolore feels a sense of hope as he picks up the log book. Alas! As he flips through the dog-eared pages, he notices that a quarter of the pages are torn out of the spine, leaving only the unfilled pages.

Shit!

Again, Dolore is getting disheartening. It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone destroy all the entries? There are perchance, some secrets which he should not discover.

But the missing pages have to go somewhere. The dustbin perhaps. Shucks, no! There isn’t any dustbin in the room. The drawers, the drawers! No, nothing again.

That is when Dolore remembers something. When he was young, he used to write secret messages to his friend. Pretending to be undercover agents, they would write a message on a piece of unwanted paper, with another one below it, applying pressure with the tip of the pen as they wrote. When they pass along the apparently-blank piece of paper at the bottom to each other, they could retrace the hidden message by shading lightly on it.

No doubt, it is child’s play but here, it proves useful.

Tilting the log book in a suitable angle, he could make out several incomplete words.

TH S CR T D E W TH ME

It doesn’ take much of a guess for Dolore to fill in the missing letters. Unless he is very much mistaken, he has stumbled on another dead end. It seems that the key to the entire mystery is only with the captain and if he goes into such an extent to hide the truth, there is no way Dolore could make him talk even if he could find him.

Just then, another idea comes to Dolore’s mind. There is a radio in the room and he is going to try making a distress call. Switching it on, he is overjoyed to find it still working. But he has no idea of his location. How then is he supposed to tell his rescuers where to look for him? Never mind, he is going for a shot anyway.

Mayday, mayday…

Static.

Dolore checks the frequency and tries again.

Please! Please reply if you hear me! Anyone! This is a distress call!

Again, all he gets is only crackling interference. Dolore almost broke out in tears. No one is coming to his help!

Face it!

Battered by numerous futile attempts and false hopes, there is an inner voice that tells Dolore to give up. However, another part tells him to cling on. The self-conflict goes on.

Sick of being inside the ship, Dolore walks to the deck outside. It is frigging cold and the fog is so thick that visibility is almost nil. Dolore shivers. Still, he is not going to return into the ship. He is sick to be confined alone indoors.

Everything has been so surreal that it has a dream-like quality. Any moment now, he is going to awake. However, denial is not an option when reality bares itself, naked, in front of him.

Dolore could picture the magnificent size of the ship. He believes a ship of this size, when viewed from the outside, should easily rival the grandeur of the ill-fated luxury liner, Titanic, which ran into an iceberg in its maiden voyage. In contrast, this ship is only an empty vessel which is sailing on and on in the sea of unknown, neither with a compass nor a captain. It is only a matter of time before it runs aground and silently slips into the sea to its final resting place.

Lying down on the deck, he queerly hopes the cold would numb his senses. All is going to be a bliss when he could no longer feel anything.

As he gazes into the sky, he is glad to still be able to see the stars. In fact, never before has he seen more stars than this. They are generously sprinkled over the black canvas. Even the water reflects the twinkling stars, creating an illusion that the ship is sailing in the night sky. There isn’t fog; there are only clouds.

As if in a trance, Dolore leans against the railings on the deck while trying to grab hold of the brightest star, only to find himself plunging into the unknown darkness…