Morning all. Hope you are ready for the last prompt of the week. Take a good look at the sentence, take a deep breath and set the timer for fifteen minutes. Let’s see what comes out the other side.
This is not where I thought this was going to go. I am going to have to give this fifteen more minutes just to see why he is on the ship, but I kind of like this one.
Friday, April 24th: The ship rocked with the waves.
The ship rocked with the waves. Elliot tried not to moan. He had never really contemplated seasickness before. He was from a land locked zone. There was no ocean for hundreds, if not thousands of miles. In fact, his home was in a desert. Their water came from deep within the underground aquifer and from occasional rains.
They had water barrels and cisterns to catch every available drop. It was then filtered through a purification system to remove all of the contaminations the air added and then fed into the system. Most of the water went to the indoor agricultural centers. Growing food in fields as their ancestors had done was no longer an option for them. Importing food elevated the cost exponentially. The indoor growth system was their only means of survival.
The amount of water each person was given was strictly rationed. There were no rivers or lakes above ground where he lived. Therefore, no ships. And no sea sickness.
He let out an audible groan as the ship dipped into a particularly deep trough between waves.
When he first saw the ocean it was like a vast dream. How often had he dreamed of endless water. Of falling into a cool pool of it after a long and sweaty day instead of stepping into the ultrasonic shower? To see water in such vast quantities and out in the open was almost unfathomable.
He was warned not to drink it as it would make him sick. He was laughed at as he asked what the contamination level was for the sea. He forgot completely about the salinity. It simply was not a functional part of his world.
Once he learned the water was not laden with poisons he tried it. He dipped a finger in surreptitiously and brought it to his lips, flicking his tongue out like a snake testing air. It was salty and bitter. Oddly, it tasted much like it smelled. He thought getting used to the fact of the water would be the hardest thing he had to deal with. Then he boarded the ship and it began to move.
His body had not reacted well.
At first he thought he had been poisoned. There was more laughter and he learned of sea sickness. That it was the water itself his body was reacting to. He thought it was because of his desert upbringing but there were others suffering too. The sailors thought them all amusing and watching them swing from the ropes and climb up the long poles of the masts made his head swim.
He spent the first week of the journey unable to keep anything accept his water ration down. This he was fairly certain he only did by sheer will and muscle memory. Water was precious and should not be wasted. There were dire punishments for those who broke that rule and he was not going to violate that. He was, gradually given teas to help quell his rolling belly, and they helped. By the second week he was able to keep down small meals and was able to move about a bit, no longer confined to a bunk that moved with the water.
It helped to move about. His stomach was still unsettled but it was manageable. Still when land was sighted, his relief was an almost visceral pleasure.
Ten til Midnight 