It was only two weeks ago. I was just joining a new ship, my contract was just starting. I still had a whole month ahead of me. After a total of 15 hours of flight and a few hours of waiting, and after that 1 hour of boat travel, I reached the ship. My body wanted daytime, but it was night. I needed sleep.
I was jetlagged but I had to go out on the night shift and do handover. Because it was very important to keep track of things. Things that could affect a lot of people's lives were my responsibility. But something happened that I didn't expect.
Other friends said we didn't have enough time, they will leave the ship at the morning, and we started working at a fast pace.
As fast as we could, we checked the files, we went through the old notes, we looked for the work to be done, we reviewed the reports, and besides all that, there were also the procedures for recognizing the devices. This was actually the most important part of the job because navigation is always more important than anything else. Good thing that I have worked with most of these devices before. But safety comes first. Better to remember. Anyway...
I felt like there was nothing going on inside my mind while all this was going on. I was angry that they had left us until the last moment. I wished they had given us a day' more. Or for the friend who was going to go, I was thinking that they should have bought the plane ticket a day later or something. The lights seemed passively brighter. As if you were looking through a lens. The rays began to lengthen. I was very sleepy and one coffee was not enough. I definitely needed a second coffee.
After waking up early the day before and traveling to the airport, flying for hours and then this hustle and bustle... it was like an endless day for me. I think I lived this day for 32 hours. Yes, yes. In the country I come from, the clock is 5 hours back. In my country it is 3 hours ahead. In total, I lived about 32 hours today and I thought I was tired. I apologized to the friend who handed over and told him that I didn't totally understand what he was explaining, only half of the explaining was registered to me, and asked for permission to take a video. He gave permission and explained the devices and some important jobs while I was taking a video. He reminded me of the system. My brain was playing songs from Aurora in the background, but at least I was recording the videos and I could watch them tomorrow.
And that's when something we didn't expect happened.
The news came that we would have extra time tomorrow for the handover. I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately poured the coffee from my cup into the sink. Then I poured myself some green tea instead. I didn't need to stay awake anymore, I needed to get back to sleep. I turned to my friend and said, I'm sorry, but it's been a long 32-hour day and I'm tired. He understood me perfectly. We are colleagues after all.
It was enough just to go to the cabin and lie down on the bed to remember again how exhausting the day had been. My body was literally leaving its tiredness on the bed. But i was happy that in the morning we get 4 hours more to work together.
I set an alarm in the morning accordingly and suddenly I fell asleep.
I think it's the fastest I've ever fallen asleep.
...
Thank you so much for reading 📚 This is inspired by and written for Inkwell Creative Nonficton - Time