Defeating Greyness

Everything outside the glow of his torch was in absolute darkness, so I saw the bonfire only just before he reached and ignited it. It caught fire surprisingly fast and revealed that he was far from alone. The group of about twenty people stood motionless. They were also wearing all kinds of junk and looked like they had stepped fresh out of a Mad Max movie. I hoped things were a bit more civilized than they had been there.

A drum started to beat, startling me. I expected some kind of dance or ritual, but they just stood there, staring into the fire. The torch carrier and another guy went towards the sea and started to wade into the water. They certainly weren't planning to swim towards my dinghy? If they did, they should have dropped their masks, the tire tread one was wearing as a sash, the torn leather trousers and the collection of weird junk that comprised their outfits.

They waded a bit through the sea, stopped and seemed to fumble with something just under or above the water level. As far as I could see, they opened some kind of grating. To my surprise, they pulled a human figure from below sea level. These were mostly-submerged holding cells, it seemed. I couldn't think of a more brutal way to keep a prisoner.

They dragged the limp figure ashore, past the fire and out of my sight. The whole group followed them, leaving the bonfire behind. The beating of the drum got even more intense and a shiver ran through me. I heard a frantic scream that stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It was replaced by cheering. I stared at the empty shoreline in terror. No. This was not what I had hoped for. Not at all.

Of course, the right thing would be to turn around, get on my yacht and leave this rotten place immediately. I had feared society would have returned to this state, but seeing it in every brutal detail was still an unwelcome and unsettling reality check. There was nothing to be gained here. This place was dangerous. I was glad to have at least learned this and started to row as fast as I could without making too much noise. The problem was for some mysterious reason I rowed towards the shore, not towards the safety of my yacht.

Anxiously looking over my shoulder from time to time, I asked myself why I was doing this. Rationally, I knew that the permanent clouding made me invisible at night, but I still had no great wish to personally experience that cage, and whatever caused the scream that followed it.

I had no idea where exactly the cage was until my dinghy suddenly bumped against something solid. I turned around and could vaguely see some kind of grating just a few centimeters above the sea. Damn, it must be hell to be kept in here. Even the slightest swell would make breathing hard work. How long could anyone survive in this thing? A day? Maybe two? Horror. However, this cage was empty now. No one to rescue, I could return to my ship now.

"Hey!" Someone addressed me, barely audible. I looked around, searching for the source. This didn't come from the shore, this was nearby.

"Hey," that weak female voice repeated.

I realized that there was more than one cage and at least one wasn't empty. I rowed vaguely towards where I thought I heard the voice and soon discovered the other cage. I stared down at it and suddenly a face appeared just above the waterline, pressed against the wooden grating. It looked pale, gaunt and desperate.

Shit.

So, what could I do? She was barely conscious and would have been dead soon even without the barbarian assholes on the shore. Could I leave now and live with myself afterwards? Was I any better than those people, who could barely be described as human, if I did? Even if it seemed I was the last one, I still regarded myself as a civilized person. Not that I'd done a whole lot to prove it, so far.

My food was severely limited. Doubling the population aboard my yacht made the calculation of the effect on my remaining life span easy. If I took her with me, I might die with a better conscience, but I'd surely die a whole lot sooner.

Sighing, I unlocked the simple wooden locking mechanism and lifted the grating. I panicked briefly because she was nowhere to be seen any more. I grabbed under water, trying to find her. After a few seconds, I had a bunch of hair in my hand and I started to pull. As soon as her head had passed the water line, I gripped her shoulder. I had to step on the cage to pull her into my dinghy, even though she seemed light as a feather.

I had a second moment of panic as I realized that I hadn't paid attention to the situation on the shore for too long. I was near enough to be reached by any wading or swimming barbarian within a few minutes. I stared into the semi darkness that was only illuminated by the dying fire, but couldn't see any weird masks anywhere.

I placed her at the bow, checked if she was still breathing, and started to row back to my yacht.

A yell from the island broke the silence. I looked back. Someone stood next to the fire, his weird attire hanging from him in shreds. He was pointing in my direction and was hollering at the top of his lungs. I could sense a distinct dislike towards me, which seemed misplaced as we had never met before. It sure helped to support my rowing efforts, as did the sight of his buddies entering the water right behind him.

I was sure I could row much faster than they could swim, but a head full of fear didn't help that thought come to the foreground. Luckily, they were still wearing their weird ornaments, which slowed them down further. Frustrated shouts in some foreign language were confirming this. They might be good waders, but swimming is a different thing.

That was when the next onslaught of panic hit me. The darkness was no longer my friend: it totally hid my yacht. I had no idea where it was. As long as the remains of the fire on shore glowed, I had a rough sense of distance and direction. Holy shit, if that fire died, I'd have no way to...

I was interrupted by my bow hitting something big and hard. I looked around and could vaguely make out my yacht's shape against the dark sky. I might be dumb, but I sure was lucky.

I pulled her aboard and laid her on the deck. She weighed no more than 40 to 45 kilos. She was clearly starved and totally exhausted. Her skin had a gruesome, whitish color, probably from having been under water for too long.

I was exhausted, myself, but I needed to get away from here before those former human beings found some kind of boat and decided they needed new inhabitants for their sea-view apartments. Being currently out of wind, I used the electric motor. I rarely did that, but my life ranked slightly higher than the state of my main batteries.

What to do in the short term? The first step was, of course, to leave the area immediately. That weird tribe might have access to boats and probably wouldn't mind having mine as well. As there almost never was any wind at night and this one was no exception, I used the small electric motor to slowly leave Flores westwards in total darkness.

While I steered my yacht away from that rotten island, using my GPS, I watched my new acquisition. She just lay on the deck, breathing very shallow, looking like death warmed over. Okay, I had saved her. I was rewarded for that successful mission by a bunch of new problems. First, I'd have to share my food reserves. Second, my boat had been a safe place for me, so far. I could fall asleep wherever and whenever I wanted without having to fear someone throwing me overboard or killing me in some other creative way. Third, I had been the sole decision maker aboard. My natural cautiousness had kept me very safe so far. Okay, maybe it was my cowardice keeping me from solving any long-term problems. As always, that was a matter of perspective. However, I was about to face discussions, maybe even arguments, with a woman, on top of it all. I had never been good at handling any of those: arguments, discussions, or women.

She coughed slowly and brought me back to reality. I set the yacht to autopilot, reduced the speed and walked over to my new companion. She was clothed in a bedraggled collection of soaked rags. Everything was torn, everything was dirty, it was hard to tell what kind of garment it had once been.

I was never good at handling people. I grew up without my family: they left me nothing but money, not even memories. Well, at least they left me a lot of money. Having grown up mostly alone as an outsider in various boarding schools, I had avoided people for most of my life. Whenever someone even stood close to me, I had this urge to flee. I could function relatively normally in the presence of my fellow human beings, I just didn't like it.

I was even worse at handling women. I knew, of course, that it was expected of me to form some kind of relationship with females. I liked sex quite a lot; I just didn't like the rest. The expectations, the commitment, planning a long-term future, making rules, proving myself all the time. Those were the aspects I disliked, but they seemed to be crucial for every female with whom I had close contact. As a result, I had effortlessly been able to bitterly disappoint all of them, even though I had never made any promises. On the contrary, as soon as I had learned the rules of the game, I had warned every single one of them. Many overlooked those warnings, convinced they could convert me, but they eventually gave up and left me, calling me an asshole or worse.

Here I was, the guy unable to live with a woman, suddenly sharing the confined space of a yacht in a big ocean with one. I sighed and carried her under deck into the unused guest cabin. I gently placed her unconscious and trembling form onto the bunk, undressed her and covered her with blankets. Undressing her was one of the most unerotic things I had ever done. Her body was skeleton-thin and she had small injuries and big bruises almost everywhere. She didn't look like she posed an immediate danger; in fact, I doubted she would survive the night. The pieces of fabric I had peeled away from her were completely useless, even for mopping up spills.

Surprisingly, her eyes opened briefly, she smiled a little and said "thank you" before drifting back into sleep.

That brought up the next problem. I had no idea about medicine. How to treat an almost starved and certainly dehydrated person? I had no idea. I had heard to start slowly, though. I decided I would heat some instant chicken soup later.

After I sat there for a while, watching her sleep, thinking about the new situation, she suddenly screamed and jerked upwards with surprising energy, as if she had awakened from a nightmare. She looked around with staring eyes, confused, disoriented. She didn't speak a single word, just looked at me confused and frightened. Her face was hollow, and what I could see of her body looked like she was about to die from starvation soon. She looked like a zombie or something. After a few seconds I was glad to see her calm down slightly. I knew I couldn't handle sane women; a mad one terrified me.

I tried placing my hand on hers to soothe her, surprising myself. I wasn't so much into human contact, anyway, and she certainly didn't seem appealing, but it would have been inhuman not to try to comfort her. I was glad to see her wildly wandering eyes slow down and finally settle on mine. She looked searchingly at me; I felt like I was being scrutinized. She nodded, relaxed and leaned back. She even smiled a bit, confirming her return to sanity. I felt the tension leave my body a bit.

I fed her a bit of water and she relaxed more, even smiled briefly once more before she fell asleep again. I left the cabin to get some sleep myself. During the night I heard her scream twice more, but was too tired to check on her.

~~

The next morning, I was kicking myself. How could I have been so weak and dumb? These were hard times, billions had probably died, and I had to put myself in danger by rescuing a person I didn't even know. On the other hand, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had just left her behind.

Finally, I returned to her cabin with the soup to find her sitting on the bed, awake and watching me. To say that situation was awkward would be a gross understatement. Nobody said a word for an uncomfortable stretch of time. She was probably afraid to rock the boat by saying something wrong or maybe she was just too exhausted. I pretended to not know what to say, which wasn't too far from the truth. The other thing was, I didn't want to bond with her in any way as I would have to drop her off sooner or later.

I stood in the door for too long, holding that cup of soup like an idiot. I had saved her life, but what was I supposed to say now? Could I make any promises about the future? What did I have in mind for her anyway? I was very uncomfortable with the power over another human I suddenly had. I didn't want anyone to be at my mercy.

I handed her the soup and she started to drink surprisingly slowly. I had expected her to wolf it down. I watched her, meanwhile. I guessed that once she got past the bruises and the malnutrition, she would be rather pleasant to look at. The hair I had grabbed to rescue her was long and hung down dirty and straggly. She was incredibly pale. She had a cut on her forehead and blueish bruises everywhere, but I guessed once all of this healed, she would be rather attractive.

We were catching each other looking and looking away immediately. No, this was not flirting in any sense, this was just pure awkwardness. Meanwhile, I started to think about what I was planning to do with her. As much as I disliked the idea, the decision seemed to be mine alone.

I sure didn't need a companion. My situation was stable, at least for the year or so to come. Of course, I would help her. Hell, I had already saved her life. I owed her nothing. I had done my duty. I needed to get rid of her as soon as possible. I would to drop her wherever she wanted as soon as she was strong enough again. Spain, Africa, the Caribbean, didn't matter. Everyone still alive at this point had their own problems. It was surely understandable that I didn't want to burden myself with hers. I had already done an irrational thing by risking my life to rescue her. Yes, dropping her on some coast was completely justifiable. I guessed I could part with a few weeks of supplies to feed her meanwhile, but I would not halve my life expectancy by completely sharing my food reserves. No way, that was too much.

I just needed to stay alive while she was aboard. That detail was not unimportant for me. This yacht could be her salvation as easily as it was mine. Sharing the resources with another person was as much a disadvantage for her as it was for me. Her natural goal would be to get rid of me. That was completely rational; I wouldn't even blame her. She couldn't count on my willingness to leave the yacht, so she had to find another solution to get rid of me. Life on a yacht wasn't without dangers anyway. I could easily be shoved overboard, clubbed or strangled during the frequent times I slept on deck. I needed to find a way to stay safe as long as she was aboard.

The guest cabin had a separate toilet, so I could block its door from the outside without causing hardship. I would still be able to roam freely and safely aboard. Yes, I'd need to imprison her in a way. Not the nicest thing to do after what she had experienced, but I was certain she preferred my prison to the submerged one. Apart from that, I had the advantage of not slaughtering my prisoners at night while banging a drum and cheering afterwards.

I noticed she was still watching me. How long had I been in thought? I had no idea. Time had mattered little during the previous months, so my pace had generally slowed down a bit. A lot, actually. Things were pretty static, to be honest.

"Came to a conclusion?" she asked silently and with a raspy voice. Her physical condition made her voice sound scratchy and thin, but I was still amazed by her calmness. After all, this was life or death for her.

"Um..." was my eloquent reply. How to tell someone that I had gladly rescued her, but planned to ditch her at the first possible place? She was watching me calmly, and it seemed she could read my mind easily.

"It's okay," she softly said.

"What?"

"Do whatever you need to do. It's okay. I'd be dead by now anyway without your help. To me, you can do no wrong, whatever you do. I'll always be thankful. You'll always be my hero." It was a bit difficult to understand her because she was still speaking a bit weakly, but what she said made me feel like shit. It didn't change a thing, though. I needed to do what needed to be done. I stood up, turned to leave, turned around to say something, anything to lighten up the situation.

As I just opened my mouth to say nothing, mainly because I could think of nothing to say, I saw that her eyes were closed. I didn't think she had fallen asleep that quickly. She probably wanted to make things easier for me. Damn. I would have preferred if she was a bit less nice and likable.

I left her cabin and softly closed the door behind me. It had already selected a rod to block her door with. I took it in my hand, toyed with it, almost placed it in its designated position, felt like an asshole, removed it, felt like a gullible idiot and finally got over it and locked the damn door.

Shit, now I felt bad, but feeling bad was still better than feeling dead.

Hero. "You'll always be my hero," she had said, in that thin hollow voice of hers. Shit. Heroes are big and strong and they do brave things for other people without thinking of themselves. That's exactly what I wasn't. Never had been, never would be. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I'd ever done anything for anyone but myself. Okay, I'd done dishes when it was my turn on those rare occasions when I was in a 'relationship, but you know what I mean. Ms. Bauer had lived right next door, and was probably the closest I had to a friend, but it never occurred to me to take her with me. I left her to her fate with the rest of them. Hero? Just the opposite, whatever that is.

Why had I rescued this starving female person, depriving those poor weirdly-dressed islanders of their, well, whatever they were going to use her for? And incidentally, depriving me of my least-replaceable commodity: food, thus shortening my life? Why had I felt like I couldn't live with myself if I left her there? I didn't feel all wonderful for having done it. I was half way kicking myself for having been so irrational.

After a long internal dialogue (I was getting good at those; lots of time to practice), I decided it was because I was lonely. That made sense to me: it was a rational, self-serving motive, not in the least heroic. I could live with that. Having settled my internal conundrum, I settled in my bunk. Just before I went to sleep, a stray thought crossed my mind. It really is rather nice to think that there's someone in the world who doesn't think you're an asshole, someone who might, someday, perhaps, even admire you.

~~

The next morning saw me rising early. That sounds normal? It wasn't. I had dozed away most of my time on my yacht, having nothing to do and not wanting to think about the future. Now, things had changed. I had a guest. I washed myself a bit, which was rather unusual. I even went as far as shaving.

Almost giddy, I entered the galley to make a bit of coffee for myself and my guest. I even started humming a bit before I realized what I was doing. Stop this, I thought. Don't get used to her. Don't get attached to her. Don't feel good because she's here. She's just some ballast you're going to get rid of as soon as possible.

Still, it didn't stop me from heating up soup and coffee for her to choose from. For good measure, I added a piece of dextrose. Having been unsuccessful at fighting my developing good mood, I removed the rod and knocked on her door.