“Do you want to know my version of hell?” I whispered to
Meril. We were standing side by side in our matching blue and black uniforms,
smiling and nodding at the people in the lounge.
“Hell is being on a ship, where the most wonderful food in
the world is served. Anything you can
imagine. Everything is drizzled with crème fresh and seasoned perfectly and
served with a fresh garnish of something or other picked just yesterday. And
the desserts! Crème brule and pudding, delicate layer cakes and pink squares of
something or other and chocolate mouse- all day long, whenever you want it.
"In my version of hell, you hear about the food all day
long. You smell the food wafting up from
the kitchen. Everywhere you look, there is a television screen broadcasting the
menu de jour. You can’t avoid it. The food is everywhere.
"But! And here’s the thing: you can’t have any of it. Not one
single bite of the food can be placed in your mouth.
"You don’t starve- if you starved, you would eventually die
or become so weak you would have to be removed from the ship, and this hell is
eternal. In this hell, you are served three meals a day and you have absolutely
no reason to complain. You are fed and there is enough food for you to have as
much as you want.
And eat you should, because whatever you do not eat today,
you will be served tomorrow. The crust around the sausage sticks will deepend
and harden with every re-heating, until there is no meat whatsoever but just
some sort of tough, breaded exo-skeleton. Eventually, all your meals will be
oblong in shape and indecipherable.”
Meril nodded. “Don’t worry” she whispered in her lilting
Louisianna acent, “Your meal will be covered in a pool of ranch dressing. So it
doesn’t really matter what shape it is.”
I love to talk with Meril because I know she won’t go
running to the captain.
I was asking Pat yesterday what they do with those trays of
fancy desserts if they don’t all get eaten. “Do they go into the trash?” The
thought was terrifying, yet hopeful. If
only I could get to them first….
“No,” said Pat, who has one arm tattooed like a robot arm.
“The night shift deck hands eat them. Those deck hands survive on sugar and
caffeine.”
“I’ve got to befriend a deckhand.” I said out loud.
Later that night, after Laurie and I had turned the light
out, there was a knock on the door. The sound was confusing to me- nobody had
ever needed me enough on this ship to knock on my door. Then the knock came
again, and after a long pause I said, “Come in.”
The door opened and Pat came in. I was very confused because
I had been sleeping, and because I’d taken a sleeping pill on a nearly empty
stomach, which is the only way those things work anymore.
“Are you sleeping?” He asked, entering our tiny room. “I
brought you this.” And he reached between the makeshift curtain I’d built
around my bunk, made out of Patagonia layers, and placed a little pot into my
hand and a spoon.
“It’s dessert. I stole it for you from the kitchen.”
I ate about three bites- it was a flambayed banana bread
pudding- and then I realized I was going to choke. I was too drugged up to
swallow correctly. I put the pot on my bed side shelf and fell backwards into
sleep.
In the morning I saw it there, and I remembered the entire
incident. And waking up I knew the day was a little different than any other
day before on the ship, because someone had snuck something out of the kitchen,
and figured out which room I slept in, and brought it to me in bed.