Childhood Snapshot

Falter

The house was ancient and vaguely familiar, as though I had seen it in a dream sometime before. The paint on every wall was faded and shriveling into little grey strips, peeling their way up the wall. Some of the windows weren't entirely there and the carpets were invariably discoloured and occasionally wet.

When I found the old place, it looked as though the previous inhabitants had left without much warning. Despite damage from regular exposure to the elements, the furniture had been left mostly intact and right where it should be.

I hadn't been expecting to find a ghost town here; it wasn't marked on the map. What was left of the surrounding area was sparse, desolate, and tiny. The omission from my maps did not surprise me. I have no idea why I chose to get out of my car and put everything on hold to look around the decaying ruins. Something about it seemed to invite me.

Spider

Rays of sunlight pierced the window and hung off the web, dangling dreamily. The spider, bulbous and coloured like fallen leaves, thoughtfully and industriously wraps its prey in a shell of gossamer to enjoy later. The spider drags the doomed morsel ever closer to the edge of the web, just out of view under the window's top ledge.

With only its latest catch for company, the spider merely exists to wait for its next meal. It scrambles across its structure, constantly perfecting its work. Deftly, and with shocking dexterity, it maneuvers its way around its silky edifice, forever perfecting its macabre waltz.

Morris

The ship creaked and squealed under the weight of the storm. The air was crowded with the noises of sails ripping, men screaming orders, and the unrelenting din of the storm itself thundering above. At the time, I was hiding from my duties in my cabin, deep within the ship. Secretly, I found the situation thrilling.

I will concede that on more than one occasion, I sometimes imagined the sort of adventure I might have, shipwrecked and alone on a deserted island. There was a morbid romance to it.

I heard another crash outside. More and more men running past my door and shouting unintelligible things. I was beginning to grow worried. I gathered up my belongings in my trunk, should I need to evacuate with any great haste. Just as I was about to lock the trunk, I heard a high-pitched and peevish whine from under my desk. I turned around to find the source of the sound: Morris, the ship's cat. He was a graying and grumpy old beast, but he had taken a shine to me.

"Terrible, isn't it?" I asked him.

He replied with another meow and rubbed his face against my lower leg affectionately. He hopped across the room and bounded his way to atop my trunk.

"Don't worry, old man, I won't forget about you," I told Morris, soothing him as best I could.

I'm sure that if he could, he would have responded favourably.

There was more commotion outside. I was certain that I had pulled the phrase "Get to the lifeboats" from the cacophony.

"Come on, Morris," I told the cat, shockingly calmly despite the present circumstances, "I think it might be time for us to leave."

He came down from the trunk and followed at my heels. I dragged my possessions out of my cabin and in the direction of the lifeboats. Morris stayed close by at all times. He was a pleasantly simple creature; he had no earthly items to worry about bringing along.

My final moments aboard the ship remain a blur. I do know that Morris and I made it to a lifeboat and I know that we were alone aboard it. However, all that remains after that is a terrible cracking noise, the loudest either of us had ever heard. Past that, my memory is blank. I awoke surrounded by foggy ocean with only Morris for company. I was grateful to have him. I found a cache of water bottles and dehydrated rations that might last us a few weeks.

The cat looked up at me forlornly as if to ask "why us?"

"I don't know, Morris. I just don't know."

We were adrift for days. Sometimes, just for something to do, I would shout at the fog that hung all around us. I begged the sea itself for mercy. Of course, nothing came of it.

I was thankful that Morris was a light eater and a heavy sleeper. While I spent my time hollering at no one for help, Morris was doing the smart thing and saving his energy. He was much wiser than I originally thought.