The Explorer's Apprentice

13: Jamie

“Shame. Really, you need to get out and do more.”

And I will. Once I wake up. No, wait, what if I'm not in a coma? What if it's much, much worse?

What if I've been hypnotized?

What if this is some crazy drug trip?

What if I've been abducted by aliens?

What if the government has kidnapped me and is performing horrible experiments?

What if I'm dead?

Could Titanic be heaven? Really? Everyone knows it didn’t end well. Could this be… the other place?

Isabelle doesn’t consider herself a saint, but she’s never thought of herself as a bad person, either. Hitler was a bad person. She goes to church and volunteers weekends at the food shelter and babysits her cousin for no charge. Why would she end up in the other place?

Titanic is a beautiful ship. I remember when I was told it was first being built. Modern technology is incredible. I can’t wait to get to America.  It actually takes Isabelle a second to realize the thought came from Strange Isabelle. It’s getting harder and harder to tell. The thoughts feel completely natural. Almost like they are her own. But of course they aren’t. Isabelle has never been out of America.

There is a sound of ripping cloth. It amuses her, for some reason. She made that sound. Sound is real.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” The napkin is ripped from her hand by long, painted nails. “Linen, Arabelle! I don’t believe the captain appreciates you tearing up his fine things on your first day! Or any day!” The powdered women titter behind gloved hands. The lady Strange Isabelle calls ‘Mother’ blushes. “I know you’re nervous, but stop overacting. Please, behave.”

Isabelle can’t behave. She’s possibly in a coma. Or in the other place. This is the perfect time to overact. Her chair scrapes the floor and her thick, lacy skirt scratches her pumping legs. She clips her shoulder on the ornate door as she stumbles her way through, but she doesn’t care. ‘Mother’ calls for her, but she doesn’t answer.

I can’t sit here. I have to get out of here. I have to wake up.

I should go apologize.

No! Never! There’s nothing to apologize for! Your mother, Strange Isabelle, whoever you are, and you yourself, are figments of my imagination! I’m in a play about Titanic, not the real Titanic!

Isabelle can’t stop. The hot feeling is back, consuming her blood, working into her bones. She runs, tears blurring out the forms of people she passes. Seamen on patrol. Children spinning tops. Couples lean on each other fondly, gazers point across the sea excitedly; totally oblivious to the fact they don’t exist. Isabelle holds her aching head in her hands.

I’m on Titanic. The real Titanic.

Snippets of conversation wheel around her. Other people’s lives, going on, forever moving forward.

“Oh, honey, chercher, take a gander at them dolphins…”

“Ring around the rosie…”

“I for one don’t believe a word of it, he conned me and he knows it and you better believe I’m going to be writing to the post! Bull, I say…”

“Ich liebe dich…”

Shut up! I don’t live in 1912. I don’t belong here.