My first month at sea was hell, not that I was expecting anything different. There's a reason you never hear stories about how brilliant never touching the ground is.
I wrote a diary entry when I was feeling poetic, saying "The shuddering of the Surprise is matched only by the shuddering of my shoulders as I heave the contents of my stomach overboard", and immediately threw up on that too. So the diary went overboard with the rest.
The weather? Rain and hail pummel the ship for days at a time, and just when you think it might never stop, the sun tears through the clouds and scorches the moisture from everything except Seamus' greasy hair. Lunch has been stewed carrots and beetroot for 4 months, so you can decide what you think about that.
The crew, on the other hand, is actually pretty swell (I've been brushing up on my sea puns). Gilligan was tossed out of his house in the middle of the night, in a similar fashion to me, so naturally, we're best friends.
Believe it or not, this wasn't the dream young Zahara had for her life. My father sold me off for a barrel of whiskey and one tuna one humid night when he was in a mood, can't say I'm surprised. Well, I thought I was worth at least 3 tunas, but otherwise, I'm not particularly surprised at the turn of events.
They say women are bad luck on ships and typically get thrown over, but the Surprise takes help wherever it can get it. The ratio is 5 women, 8 men, Captain Vance, and his three-legged dog Fredrick.
"Zaza, what are you staring at?" Gill always seems to find me when I'm deep in thought and staring off into space.
"Oh shit, nothing, I was just really deep in thought, writing my life story in my head again y'know." I'm not ashamed of how theatrical I can be, even privately.
A smirk crept onto Gill's weathered face.
"Is that so? Are you sure you aren't thinking about Arielle's supple skin in the moonlight? Do you think her freckles look like stars in the inky night sky?"
Goddammit. Gill read my diary before it got ruined, which I beat his ass for, but not hard enough to get rid of the memories of what he read. My eyes narrow and Gill frolics away giggling like some kind of manic cupid.
Despite my continuing affairs with the Surprise's engineer Malekai, a stoic, gentle giant type, he doesn't have my heart. My lust? Absolutely. My love? That's blossoming in a different flower bed entirely.
Arielle is the most magnificent creature I've ever seen. Her waist-length red hair billows out behind her as she stands navigating the stars, like s trail of flames that never dies. Her stormy eyes could turn men to stone and melt a lover like butter in her white, rough palms. She's ethereal. And she likes me back.
Physically, we're opposites. She's tall and ghostly pale, chiselled and severe. My body has the curves of a mountain range and my skin is the lighter shade of a tiger's eye gemstone, as Arielle would later come to describe it. When our eyes meet, it's as though fire and ice are dancing a dangerous, secret dance. I literally dream about having her hands tangled in my hair every other night. When I'm not dreaming of land of course.
Before, after three weeks on board, I started getting looks from her. I'd catch her giving me the side-eye in the kitchen, stealing glances at me during crew meetings, and once or twice I caught her full-on staring at me, and when we locked eyes she was so shocked she nearly choked on her wine.
After that, I became totally fascinated by her. I would sneak scribbles under her door, sketches of seagulls and riddles for her to solve. She seemed like the type to enjoy a challenge, something we share, but I didn't think she'd actually return them.
The same night I heard a scratching and rustling on the deck, a long shadow by the door, and saw the folded and yellowing paper slide through the crack beneath the weathered cedar. She drew a petrel and answered my riddles in scrawls of spidery letters.
That's when I started falling for her. I smiled into the swaying darkness, Gill snoring aggressively 4 feet from me in his hammock.
The ship was separated into all the usual parts, but lucky us, there were two different cabins for the crew. Captain Vance gave up his cabin in favour of sleeping under the stars on the bow. He'd set up a cosy hammock, and this way if his dog Fredrick got seasick again, he could just lean over the rail.
There's me in one cabin with Gill, Sam, Seamus, Amaarah, Soren, and Finn. Then, down the corridor, there's Arielle with Benji, Calypso, Malekai, and Rosie. So all I had to do to get to Arielle was shuffle down the corridor in the dark, and avoid detection by the entire crew.
The back and forth of letters, riddles, and sketches went on for days, and each night the ritual was the same. I slipped a note in her satchel full of mysteries she always carried, she would return it under the door full of answers.
