The Cruise to Heaven and Hell

Over the next few days more and more people got sick. The captain announced that the cruise was cancelled and that we were heading back to Miami Florida but we had to stop to let people off that needed to go to hospital. Autry and I got sore throats and then a fever that lasted three days. The captain told everyone to stay in their cabins so we couldn't even go to see our mums though we could talk to them on the ship's internal phone system.

On the last night of our sickness, I felt incredibly cold and I was shivering uncontrollably. I hugged Autry to get warm and his body felt like a furnace. This may sound extremely weird but Autry said exactly the same thing. He said he was feeling extremely cold and he said my body was very hot. By the morning our fevers were gone and our taste and smell was back. When the ships doctor came to check on us, she said we could visit our mums but we couldn't go anywhere else. It's a little embarrassing to say that despite our fevers, we never stopped fucking.

My mum was really really sick. Amazingly and thankfully Dahlia never got sick except for a sore throat that she described as a "tickle". She had trained as a nurse before she got married so she could look after my mum. My mum not only had a very high fever, she could hardly breath and was coughing like hell. It was a terrifying time. People were being taken off the ship and taken to ambulances every time we stopped and once Autry looked down at the dock and he saw a person, either passenger or crew, being taken to an ambulance but they were wrapped up completely in a white body bag.

I was really scared that my mum was going to die but the doctor said it was better that she stay on the ship. I didn't know what to do. I wanted her in hospital but I wanted her in a US hospital, not somewhere in the Caribbean or Central America. By the time we got to Miami she was a little better, at least no worse. Frustratingly the ship stayed off the coast for half a day and there was no announcement about what was going on. A few boats came out from Miami and people in protective clothes got on and off.

Finally at around midnight, the ship was allowed to dock. Still everything happened very slowly and there was no time to go to sleep. At around two AM some doctors came to see my mum. They took swabs of Dahlia, Autry and me too although from what we told them they must have known that we had been infected.

In the confusion of what happened over the next few hours, I didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye to Autry. Mum was taken off the ship and taken by ambulance to a hospital in Miami. I had to pack our stuff and then I was allowed off and taken in a small bus with a few other passengers to a hotel. I just had a chance to hug Autry and a quick kiss, then hug his mum before I had to go.

The most terrifying thing in the world, even alongside the worry about my mum was that I'd never got Autry's phone number. Our phones didn't work on the ship so there had been no point. You won't believe my stupidity but I didn't even know his surname! I wasn't allowed to go to the hospital to see my mum. I wasn't allowed to leave the hotel room. The wifi didn't work. They bought food to me and the people who did so knew less about what was going on than I did.

Then after two days of hell, I got a barrage of good news that left me a blubbering mess of relief and joy on my bed. Firstly the hospital rang and said that my mum was better and would be discharged soon though we would have to go home and she might need further medical care. Secondly I got a call from a guy at the Australian consulate.

After he asked me a whole heap of questions to confirm that he was talking to the right person, he told me all the same information about my mum that the hospital had told me but also that an evacuation flight had been organised for Australian residents who wanted to go home, that my mum and me had been booked on it and he gave me the details. He seemed to be about to hang up when he said,

"One more thing Mr Ross, a man by the name of Autry Mappletree has been trying to contact you and your mother through the consulate. He's rung several times. We haven't been releasing any details for reasons of privacy but I have his number if you wish to contact him yourself?"

If I could have reached through the phones wires and hugged him I would have done. I got the number from him and called as soon as he got off the phone. As soon as I heard his voice I just went to pieces. He was already back in his home in Key West but he had tracked me down with a lot of persistence. Of course with perfectly symmetrical stupidity, he didn't know my surname either and because of that he had trouble getting information from the consulate.

I filled him in on the condition of my mum and I spoke to Dahlia too. The whole time I was crying and snot was running out of my nose like a tap. Of course I got all of his contact details. I put them into my phone but I wrote it all down about eight times on pieces of paper and put them into my guide books, suitcase slots, wallet, everywhere. I seriously considered carving his number into my arm.

I pretty much lost track of time but a few days later we were back in Sydney. All the way on the plane I just looked at the photos and videos of me and Autry and cried. My mum was still sick and there were lots of pills she had to take. She slept most of the way and when we got to Sydney she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Annoyingly I had to stay in hotel quarantine in Sydney for another two weeks even though I could see our apartment from the hotel window. At least that gave me a chance to write most of this story and send some of my photos off online to be printed and framed.

My mum is out of hospital and she's nearly back to normal. She still has to take some steroid pills that make her head buzz but she's tapering off them.

Of course I talk to and text with Autry all the time. It doesn't look like either of us are going to start University this year so the moment the epidemic is over, I'm heading straight over there to see him.