I'm getting back into the habit of writing every day with the aim of an entertaining fantasy book in a month or so. Please read, upvote and enjoy! If you have feedback or comments for improvement, please let me know below.
If you look off the Craggy Cove coast late at night, you’ll sometimes see it. The silhouette of a lost cruise ship, circling through the glum mists and grey velvet seas.
It never makes land, never docks and never lets passengers off. Some wonder how it keeps going.
Well, one night on an early February, Bertie had left it a bit late. His fishing tug, the Pearl of Portsmouth was out in seas it shouldn’t have been. He stood there in his bristley green jumper, his chapped hands wrestling with the wheel, holding sturdy against the lashing waves. He was heading towards the harbour when the wind blew him sideways into a dense patch of fog.
Then he saw it. The great anchovy can of boozy travelers beckoning ahead. His own boat unlikely to weather the storm, he prayed to the patron saint of fisherman for mercy. A lifeboat dropped from above the edge of railings, and forever the adventurer he pounced aboard the orange inflatable.
The lifeboat was winched up again and Bertie ran across the slippery decks in the whipping winds and entered into the bar.
The brass rails were grimy and had seaweed wrapped around them like a nautical Christmas party that he hadn’t been invited to. The paunchy faced passengers were in their best brown polyester suits, glugging down pints and saying little between them. Decades at sea had made them salty. Behind the Vietnamese bartenders were a couple of squawking parrots, caged like the rest of them.
As he shook himself, Bertie ordered himself a double whiskey on the stool. Holding the rails for support.
“Rough night, huh” he said gruffly to the chap to his side. The man grumbled something about it always being a rough night and went back to a politics magazine that was out of date by about twenty years.
Once he’d swigged down the glass, Bertie got up and felt a bit wobblier than usual. He swayed down the corridors as the decks rocked backwards and forwards, past the dining room. The smell of batter tugged him back into the large room, full of circular tables and retired bank managers with their wives staring at the bottom of their glasses.
He went to the canteen queue and a squat dinner lady slopped a haddock onto a flowery plate. “There you go, my luvvie” she said giving a plate that revealed a hand covered in grubby rings. He took his tray to one of the empty tables. The clanking of cutlery on plates cut through the hushed conversation. In the corner there was a pianist playing sea shanties that had been mellowed out and slowed down into a kind of bubbly aquatic jazz. It took the edge off the ravaging seas outside and away from the sound of aching rust.
Bertie had just peeled off the skin from the bottom of the fish when a man in a white suit and two eye patches asked to join him.
“You are a peckish one aren’t ye” he said in Scottish tones.
“I’m yer Cap’n. Captain William Anchorpants of this seafaring vessel - The Phantom of the Seas. Mind if I eat with yeh?”
He sat down before Bertie could reply.
“I cannae see nothing. Lost me eyes to a vicious Glaswegian seagull. But it dunnae stop me from a running this old lassie. I were told ye were in a wee bit of distress tonight so I got the searats to pick yea up.”
“Thanks. I thought I was gone with the fishes” said Bertie.
“Well ye kinda are.” The captain replied tapping his forehead.
“I like to call this a middle ground. A kinda resting place for lost souls until they’re ready to go back to shore. Don’t worry, we got plenty for ye to do.” He gestured over his shoulder.
A young woman with her hair tied back came up in a red polo shirt with a clip board and started barking the script she’d rehearsed so many times in training.
“Hiya love. We got karaoke on a Tuesday and Thursday, pools open 8-4, but I’d get their by at least 7 in the morning so you can put your towel down. You look like you need a bit of a rest. The spa is open four nights a week for all your health and beauty needs. You can have a bamboo massage, botox for those lines on your forehead, tooth whitening, a tanning booth so all your friends think you’ve had better weather than what we’ve had. Then we have a wide range of shops so you can take back some tax-free gifts. There’s a luxury cinema and a wide range of dining options as long as you like fish. There’s an all-inclusive bar. There’s the arcade, the casino. Then when you’ve done everything and are looking for some help from above, we have a chapel for all your sins.
Alright see ya later!”
She bounced off again as quickly as she’d arrived.
Bertie looked like he’d just stuck his head inside a foghorn on full blast. He looked at his fish. The spine crinkling off the plate, the fish’s glazed-over eye staring back at him into nothingness. He’d lost his appetite, if he’d had one in the first place. He placed his knife and fork together and wiped his whiskery beard with the napkin.
He looked around at the pasty green wallpaper, the fluorescent lamps shining starkly from the wall. Then he looked to the dark green emergency exit sign that led to the back balcony. The little white man was running.
He edged his seat back.
“Not so fast. Nobody leaves the Phantom of the Seas that easily. You can try but they’ll bring you back. The parrots will pick you up by your ears and put you back on this luxury cruise to nowhere in particular.”
“Nowhere in particular?”
“Yes matey, Nowhere in Particular. A secret port that we cursed off the face of the earth. It will naer be found on a map. No satellite will see it. No ships will find it through the mists, except those that deserve to go there. Let me find you your cabin before ye get into any more trouble than it’s worth.”
The room number was 707. It was windowless. Tightly bunched. Above the starched maroon double bed, an oval framed print depicted ropes in various knots.
“There” said the captain. “If yeh try to leave, I’ll know. Captain W. Ankerpants knows. I cannae see… but I’ll know.” He pointed two fingers at his eyepatches and then pointed the fingers at Bertie’s eyes.
The door slammed and Bertie slumped onto the bed. His head swimming, his gristley body felt nauseous. But he was here for now in the windowless cabin next to the humming engine, deep in the bowels of the ship.