‘Cheese on toast,’ Linden said loudly, knowing that everyone around would be able to hear him.
‘Is this all we have to eat?’ He said looking down at his plate.
‘This isn't even cheese .... Or bread!’
His outbursts had become a regular occurrence on the Ship, but he always seemed to get away with it, no one ever seemed to care.
‘Look at this,’ he said, pointing at a food stain, probably tomato sauce, clinging to the underside of the table like a limpet.
‘It’s disgusting!’ with that Linden left the gallery, food tray in hand, He wouldn't be seen dead eating with the crew... Ironically the crew were already dead.
Linden was alone, and had been for years, of course he didn't know, or most likely preferred not to accept this minor detail.
His colleagues corpses were littered around the ship and it appeared that meant nothing to him, he didn’t see it.
In fact, he even wrote a report about one of the crew members, for being late for duty and in an untidy uniform, who he reported this to though is still unknown.
The funny thing about history is someone has to be there to record it, and when the last person alive is insane; Things can get a little confused.
THIS IS WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED
THE NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED AS LINDEN WAS INSANE AND COULDN’T EVEN REMEMBER IF HE HAD CORNFLAKES FOR BREAKFAST
(He Hadn’t)
The story began 6 years ago, a day after the launch of the great ship Snake; it was an imaginative name for a ship with the designation Anaconda.
Whilst most of the ship’s crew had been handpicked from only the finest candidates from around the fleet “Other” positions needed filling, mostly due to the pomposity of a high class military vessel. The crew had a nickname for these nobody’s, “Window dressing”
Linden was nobody, just some bloke assigned to a ship; his job was pretty much,
‘Just stand there and salute … it looks better.’
This didn’t bother him; He was finally on a ship and not just any ship, this was Snake a battle class Anaconda; some would say the pride of the fleet.
His job was to stand by the second door on the second floor and salute anyone who walked past.
It wasn’t much but it was still a dream come true.
Although he had no idea why his role was important, he felt nothing but pride; he really believed that he would lay down his life to protect this ship… Unless it meant pain… he didn’t like pain.
DAY ONE: 07:00 – 30/10/32
‘Cheese on toast, I can’t believe that we can get this out here!’ Linden exclaimed, so excited that he almost jumped out of his seat.
It was only Cohan’s hand on his arm that stopped him.
‘Calm down dude, you know what they do if you …’ Cohan suddenly changed his focus to his plate of food.
The ships Security, a nasty bunch of individuals, with a penchant for violence were passing their table; being pulled out by the security was not something you wanted to happen. Tales were told, horrible tales… always avoid ‘The Security’
It was the Security’s job to keep the crew “Disciplined” though their methods where somewhat questionable.
As they passed, Cohan continued.
‘Just keep your head down, you’ll be fine,’ Cohan said, he knew Linden from the academy and he felt he had to look out for him, after all it was him that helped Linden get his position on the ship, what harm could he do saluting people all day?
‘I have to get back to engineering’ Cohan said as he got up from the table, taking his jacket off of the back of his chair.
‘Just remember, keep your head down’ he continued on his way out of the gallery, unaware that Linden was now face first in his dinner tray mumbling the words, ‘Head down, head down’.
Linden‘s demeanour gave an impression, something that people couldn’t quite put their finger on, but everyone eventually came to the same conclusion.
The general consensus was that Linden was a little simple, and that wasn’t far from the truth.
It wasn’t down to education or mental ability; he had passed all of his entry examinations after all.
It was just that he would do strange things sometimes and quite often he would have no idea of where he was at any given time, Sometimes he would wonder why he was on the toilet, Or why he hadn’t gotten there quicker, Both situations could end up being very messy.
Breakfast was now over and recovering from his “head down” incident, Linden walked back to his post, His face still bearing the signs of a meal not eaten, to the second door on the second floor, and stood.
Fulfilling his duties, he felt proud.
An hour, maybe two passed, Time is hard to judge when you are in a space and don’t have a watch to look at.
Linden had cleverly, he thought, devised a way of telling the time by how many salutes he’d given since the start of his shift, multiplying that by six and then taking away two, it didn’t work, in part because he would drift off and forget how many salute’s he’d given, but mainly because it was a stupid idea.
Linden stared at the wall opposite him, Salute and remember no eye contact he thought as someone else passed him, in what seemed to be a hurry.
The atmosphere within the ship had changed considerably in the last few minutes; it felt like the ship was moving about more than usual.
The whining of the Alarm sounded, at first it was a distant hum but slowly built up into a deafening roar as it filtered through the ship, lighting it up in flashes of red, most people would have taken this as a sign of danger.
But not Linden, as the crew were running to their battle stations, Linden was busy trying to ‘Fix’ the light bulbs in his area.
‘It’s O.K ...’ he said, pulling wires from behind the light bulbs in a vain attempt to ‘turn them off’
‘… I think it’s supposed to do this …’ Linden said, pretty much to himself thinking he had worked out the problem.
‘It’s probably a warning signal of some sort’ He shouted at the crew members running past him, throwing out the odd salute here and there, none of which seemed to be paying attention.
He managed to loosen the bulb enough to stop it flashing and declared it ‘Fixed!’
Feeling so proud that he had saved the ship from what he thought was imminent disaster.
It kind of was.
). I am not a writer and this is my first attempt (apart from a couple of Drabbles here) so any advice, glaring mistakes and whatnot would be great ..
