The Cruise

"You should take that cruise", they said.

"You'll have fun even alone", they said.

Fuck them: I hate cruises.

The more I walk down the bridge, sipping on these watered-down cocktails from the all-inclusive welcome buffet, the more I feel like I don't belong here.

And not just in the "You're alone on the cruise ship that was supposed to save your marriage" way. I cannot shake the feeling that it's all some kind of conspiracy meant to spite me... or worse.

The way the other guests walk in perfectly round groups of five, so there is no gap to approach them...

The way they talk loud enough so you can't approach them, yet soft enough that you cannot distinguish a single word that would allow you to join the conversation...

It feels fake, rehearsed, staged!

Now that I pay attention, they look more like automata than people. Clinking their way through, bending awkwardly at the joints in a synchronous clockwork-type movement. And between every two groups, a gap big enough to make sure they are separate, yet small enough that I can't fit.

That's it: They're taunting my loneliness.

Fuck them!

I'm leaving this party.

Also, after all the drinks, I really need to pee. And why is it that every time I really need it, I can never find a toilet?

I mean...

There are lots of toilets here. But it's hard to find a usable one.

My feet lead me below deck, to a long corridor full of doors. Soft sounds escape through the gaps around their metal frames, like dim lights in a dark alley.

The other guests are having fun, it seems.

With their private toilets in their private cabins. Rich bastards!

While I'm here alone, at the mercy of the public ones.

Here's one! Shit, it has no door.

Another one! But the ceiling is so low that if I jam myself in, I won't be able to come out.

Eww no! This one is dirty beyond human comprehension.

Arght! This one has a broken seat.

As I stumble along the corridor, the ceiling starts falling down. Now I have to crouch and dig my way through the debris. Who knew it took so many different materials to build a ship?

Finally! A toilet with a functioning door and a functioning chair.

As I sit on it, I realize that the wall next to me is nothing but a glass panel into the adjacent stall.

Perverts!

A woman with a baby is using it. She doesn't seem to care for me looking at her. She doesn't seem to care for her baby's safety, either.

Don't put him in the sink like that! He's going to roll out and fall!

I want to scream at her, but a rattling sound underneath demands my immediate attention.

I lift my feet, and a furry, pointy nose fills the space they were occupying. It would be cute if it wasn't sniffing for something to chew on... something warm-blooded and possibly toe-shaped.

My heartbeat goes into a frenzy, and I jump with both feet on the ring of the toilet seat.

Just on time! A pair of beady eyes and a fat, furry, sausage-shaped body follow the cute pointy nose.

A rat.

And not just any rat.

A hungry, fat rat on the prowl.

The woman in the next stall is gone; I can't ask her for help.

If I step on the floor, the rat will eat my toes. I hear it chatter in anticipation. I have to pull myself up through the window.

But it's too small.

Too tight.

I cannot breathe!

Bruising my ribcage in the effort, I squeeze through and fall on the other side. I can hear the disappointed squealing. Followed by an abrupt squawk and a long hiss.

Fuck!

It got my scent.

Now it will never stop looking for me.

I need help.

My legs feel like jelly, as I urge them in the opposite direction we came from. It is still behind me, chittering and chattering.

As we emerge on the other side of the ship, I can see the coast. A security man, dressed in blue, is checking the ropes that anchor us to the harbor.

"I'll take care of it, miss." He says, with a chivalrous smile.

In a single swift movement, he traps the rat inside a box. Then gestures for me to go back to the party above.

I hate parties.

I linger.

I want to ask him not to harm the rat. It was just hungry, not evil. I turn around... but it's too late.

Like wet bread hitting asphalt, followed by broken chalk — tiny bones fractured, tiny organs turned to pulp. The sound slaps my ears.

My stomach flips and knots itself up like a bretzel.

Why couldn't he release it outside the ship?

He's squatting behind a short wall. He thinks I left, and nobody can see him. He licks the gore from the brick in his hand. I can see the tiny paws still twitching helplessly in a macabre frenzy.

My stomach hurts badly now.

What the fuck did I just see?

I want to go away. I want to leave this awful guard and the morbid scene behind!

But my body forgot who it belongs to. It forces me to watch as the guard slowly and — oh so thoroughly — licks the brick clean.

Then, he lays it down and looks at his left hand: it's caked in the remnants of the rat's insides.

With the lust of a child in a candy store, he starts licking his hand.

Then sucking on it.

Chewing on it.

New blood leaks from either side of his gaping smile as he gurgles with pleasure.

My stomach betrays me.

Fuck.

He heard me dry heaving.

He gets up from behind the wall. We lock eyes. He plucks the appendage leftovers out of his mouth. The smile grows even wider, bits of flesh and bone, fur and gore oozing through his teeth.

He doesn't speak.

He steps forward, reaching out for me with the bloody stump, grasping the air with the ghost feeling of a hand that is no longer quite there. But it isn't quite gone either.

He cannot speak.

His mouth is too full, and he's too busy chewing.

Finally, a surge of adrenaline snaps my body out of its paralysis. As my stomach throbs with pain, my limbs move on autopilot, taking me away from the bloody spectacle.

Passing through the torturous way below the deck, I can no longer hear the buzzing life behind the cabins' doors.

Where did everyone go?

And where is all this rust coming from?

No, not rust. Blood.

Dry, old blood.

It's everywhere. The walls are sweating it out, like the ship needs it to maintain its bodily functions.

No, no, no!

Movement.

The slow sputter of the ship's engine.

We're rolling. We're leaving the port. Does the captain know what's going on here? Should I try to reach him and explain?

Would it be safe?

Giggles behind me.

Childish delight of a grown man enjoying his favorite food.

I scramble inside one of the toilets. It's the one with the broken chair.

Oh God! What is this smell?

For a moment, I feel I could pass out. But it does not smell of sewage. And it is not human waste inside the broken chair. The baby I saw earlier.

Discarded.

Broken.

I duck to puke in a corner.

That's when I see her — the mother.

Folded on the floor, like forgotten luggage at a train station.

Powerless.

Dirty.

Naked.

Something is carved all over her body. One word. "Guilty". With a rusty nail in her hand, she stops the carving for a moment. A whimper slips out of her mouth, and she turns towards me.

She looks at me with the empty sockets where her eyes used to be. Replaced by many rusty nails.

"Guilty", she murmurs.

She cocks her head to one side, like a bird in a cage about to sing.

"Guilty!" She screams, her body suddenly shaking with cacophonic cackling.

She lifts her nail like the knife of a street thug, ready to strike.

"Please..." I start, closing my eyes. But it's not a nail's sharp tip that lands on me. Warm, viscous, fluid hits my face. The smell of iron, followed by the deaf thump of a falling body, says everything.

Another wave of sick shakes my stomach, but I force myself to be still.

Did he hear it?

The giggles outside the door give me the answer I feared.

I cower behind a trash can, under the sink.

The man in blue walks in. Both hands are missing now, forearms chewed halfway through. He's still munching and moaning with pleasure.

He stops. Looks at the woman, blood rapidly pooling under her body. He turns to the toilet.

With a hungry slobber, he dives in, face first. The crunching and munching echo in the bowl louder and louder.

That's my chance.

I run past him, out of the stall and into the narrow corridor.

Scraping my way through the debris once again, I am forced to crawl as the ceiling collapses further. The stench and stickiness tell me they are no longer the same debris I encountered on my way there... but I won't look. I can't.

Air!

Trembling like a yellow leaf on a stormy autumn night, I emerge above deck, where the welcome buffet was.

Or, still is.

But the food has been replaced with chunks of flesh. Slabs of entrails, organs, and unclean intestines leak their contents on the pristine white tablecloth, while all festive signs read "Guilty" instead of "Welcome".

I turn around.

All the automata are staring at me with their mechanical eyes.

Still in their unbroken circles. Still buzzing too softly to hear, too loudly to ignore.

They are all staring at me as I wake up.

"Guilty," they say.

"I'm sorry!" The sobbing shakes the tubes sticking out of my belly and makes the chains around my limbs rattle.

"I was just so hungry." I try to plead.

"Guilty," they say it again.

No passion.

No emotion.

Just the word.

Just the memory of what I've done.

Before another wave of sleep claims my conscience, delivering it to its eternal punishment.