The Skyline of a Ship

The Skyline of a Ship

  By Anna Stroud

  Copyright 2016 Anna Stroud

  I rip off a new sheet from my calendar. This is February the third, 2051. Good news: the thirds are Salad Days. I grab my itchy green tweed coat, and leave my flat. The door grates the floor as it slams. I own twenty square meters, and something tells me that it’s not meant to last, because twenty is a lot for someone living alone.

  In the meantime, I’m walking along the dyke, not minding the salty bite of the wind. Just to clear my head. All over the pavement, the seaweed carried by the last Large Tide, cracks under my feet. I don’t like to see the swarms of flies rising to swirl around my legs. But at this time of the day, the Transport System is overcrowded – and the shop is not that far. The problem is in reaching the stand before everything is gone.

  Not that people are selfish and fighting over the food – we’re just too many. Actually, here everyone stands shoulder to shoulder, even with those they don’t know. Our relatives used to be our family; but now it’s everyone. It's not as if we had the choice, because everyone is sick. Of course, everything is polluted: the water, the air, the ground – that doesn’t help.

  I, for instance, am twenty-three and have one dead and one dying kidney. One of these days, I’ll need a transplant, and for that a donor I’ll have to find myself, because the Social Services are overloaded with work. Kidneys have become a scarce commodity since the intoxication of 2042. If I play solo, I’ll have a hard time finding someone to reach out to me. We’re all helping each other – but we aren't naïve about it.

  As I suppress that thought, I can finally see the shop, hiding in the shadow of two cob shacks with oak studs and a thatched-roof – so typical around here; this is my landscape, and I love it.

  The line of customers is so long that it snakes up to the white marks in the middle of the street. Never mind, I’ll wait, a humble nobody adding a scale to the reptile’s tail.

  I haven’t been queuing for five minutes when my phone starts to ring. They ask for a Yoko. It takes me some time to respond. It’s been a while since I’ve been last called that way – my friends always use nicknames.

  I answer: what do they want from me? I’m expected at home. Oh. (My stomach screams its disapproval.) There is food I am told, as if the gurgle had reached the receiver. Re-oh. Then I hear: and not just food. What do they mean, what am I to expect? And just like that, I’m being recited an entire ODI – or, for the outdated: official descriptive identity sheet. The speaker gets out of breath on the other side of the phone, as if he was sprinting whereas the sheet is a marathon. It’s even an endless tsunami that overwhelms me and leaves me thunderstruck.

  The information makes its way to my brain, easily: I’m used to it and defenceless. Lily Altmann, female, daughter of Emma Altmann and Louis Franz, 21, born-whenever in Courseulles-sur-Mer (splendid, it’s close by, how helpful) classicist (just like me, what a coincidence) 5,7 feet high, appendicitis at five, up-to-date vaccinations likes to walk, paints beds…

  I put a small distance between the phone and my ear.

  I have the feeling that he won’t explain anything to me, because he’s afraid to; he’ll just throw it all and leave me with it. The worst part is that he keeps going, no matter what. Finally, his monologue ends, in the tiniest voice, with: insulin-dependent diabetic since 2042.

  Then he asks if I have any questions, dares to reassure me (without leaving me any time to answer), saying that it will be alright, that I can always contact the Service if I have any problems. He thanks me and hangs up. I notice that he didn’t tell me what to do. But I know the essential, what he couldn’t hide.

  I’m not sure I understood (or rather, I really don’t want to understand) but there is only one way to find out: I have to check. So I go back and rush home.

  With my throat burning up (and probably of a deeper red than the tomatoes from the salad whose colour I'll never see), I burst into my building's corridor. I lean against the wall with my arm. There are two people waiting in front of my door: a girl and a man. I look at them through the scattered hair coming down across my forehead.

  They turned their heads to my direction. They must wonder who I am, and wish for me not be the one they are waiting for.

  All I can see is the man's uniform – Social Services.

  So I wasn't wrong. I start panicking. I think about my neighbours, whom they entrusted with a legless cripple in his fifties. About this former fishmonger, who now has to raise quadruplets because their mother died in childbirth. About my brother who was placed in a foster home as well, because he was unable to live alone as well, and because my parents couldn't take care of him either.

  Then I look at the girl, Lily Althing.

  I knew it wasn't meant to last.

  I walk towards her with a tight smile, like the doomed walks on the plank towards the sea. She is the sun behind the horizon; the yellow blinding stain that forces you, in addition to the rest, to close your eyes. She is the thick cloud that darkens the sky and keeps hope locked away. She is even the killer whale that arises from a blue spray, its teeth as shiny as blood-lusting daggers.

  I take a long breath.

  Well. I don't have a choice. It could have been worse. It could have been an elderly, for instance. Obviously, the Social Services put some effort in making our profiles match. And why would a diabetic need assistance anyway? They aren't the ones who need it the most, as far as I know.

  Lily looks back at me, gives me an embarrassed smile and apologizes. I notice the big dark circles under her eyes, her ash complexion, and her gauntness, too. My hand reaches for hers, hesitates, moves back... The man seizes his opportunity to catch it and shakes it firmly.

  He explains my role to me, showing his clean fresh white teeth as a token of good faith. I suspected that it was what was coming, but hearing out loud that I have to take care of Lily and assist her every day – Lily who will live at my place, at my place! – makes me want to run away (not mentioning how disgusted I feel by this guy who talks about the girl as if she wasn't there; is she also mute?).

  'To run away'... No wonder why the guy chose not to put my back against the wall over the phone.

  After he made me sign a perfunctory paper and made sure that no one would throw themselves out of the window (no one, that's me), the man finally leaves us alone. I introduce Lily to my (our!) two-room flat. As with all modern housing, there is no kitchen or bathroom. To warm up the food, a simple microwave placed on a stool is enough, and there are communal showers on the lower floor of every building – there is not enough water to shower everyday anyway, so better not waste the space (Lily makes a funny face, I'd swear she comes from an old house where she could have as much space as she wanted). On the other hand, in addition to the bedroom (that is only made here of a small bed stuck between the wall and the window), there is a junk room, all dusty and packed to the roof. This is where I study, where I have the computer I use to keep in touch with my boss when I work between classes, and, to sum up, where I do everything: handiwork, sewing, and other kinds of crafts. Manufactured goods are usually rare and expensive, so it's better to save money for vital stuff; fortunately, the food is free – well, paid with the taxes.

  Lily is too shy to ask where she's going to sleep and I must say that apart from under the desk, I can't see where she would have the room to lie down. But since that kind of proposition doesn't help to break the ice, I try my best to find an idea. Eventually, I offer to build her a top bunk over my bed – I've got the stuff for that. Of course, it will be stuck between the top of the window on the left and the wall on the right, but considering the narrowness of the room that's the best I can do. I put myself to work while, seated on my blanket, she looks o
utside the glass.

  The window overlooks the sea. I don't need to check to know what she is staring at. In the distance, on the horizon, there is a light grey shape. By squinting, we can spot a hull, a rig. It's a wrecked ship, anchored over there and left alone. I don't know what it's doing there, or how on earth it has outlived storm after storm for years. They say that, sometimes, people go there and never come back. I'd like to reach it, someday, just to see.

  At some point, Lily gets up to warm up some food she brought. The microwave tings, and an indefinite smell comes out of it, awaking my stomach. I put down my drill, asking what it is. She doesn't know. And I must say that neither the yellowish colour of the mixture nor its slimy texture could allow anyone to identify it. In fact, it's often how it is. Food