One morning I wake up to find my living room replaced by an ocean.
I stand in the doorway, look over the gray, clamoring waves. They stretch as far as the eye can see. This isn’t a tropical sort of ocean, it’s breezy and unwelcoming. The North Atlantic perhaps?
I light a cigarette, consider my situation.
I decide to call my roommate.
“Yes?”
“So, the ocean?”
“Yeah, I know.”
I can hear seagulls on his end of the line.
“Meet in the kitchen?”
“Fine.”
I put together a makeshift raft out of things I find around my bedroom and set sail.
The voyage takes three weeks.
In the kitchen, my roommate is making coffee. I note, not without jealousy, that his castaway beard came in a lot nicer than mine.
“Coffee?” he hands me a steaming mug.
I offer him a cigarette in return.
“So what now?” he asks, lighting up.
We decide to call our landlord. It goes to voicemail.
“He better give us back our security deposit,” my roommate grumbles.
By that point we are both starving so we have a proper breakfast. I take a nap under the kitchen table, then decide to go in for a dip.
The sun shines in through the open windows, ripples along the violet waves. The water is clear and not nearly as cold as it looks.
Once I’m out far enough, I turn over onto my back. I float along, letting the shallow waves turn me this way and that. I imagine the depths, miles and miles of mysterious water, ancient sea creatures wandering aimlessly in the aquamarine shade.
It gives me a lonely feeling, a feeling of distance, so I decide to come back ashore.
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Nikolaj Volgushev lives in Denmark where he writes, programs, and does other things along those lines. His fiction has appeared in journals such as The Cafe Irreal, The Molotov Cocktail, and Cease, Cows.
Lead image: “seagulls-815304_1920” (via Flickr user Sherman M. Leavitt)