Isolation: Book One, Paradise

Prologue

He heard the horn blow, long and loud, piercing through the midnight breeze. The sea was calm tonight. The ship floated gracefully upon the black water. Dennis peered over the railing. It always amazed him how dark the water could get. It was like staring into the abyss. There could be anything down there, he always thought. He had been a waiter on three other cruise ships now for twice as many years and he still couldn't shake that uneasy feeling he got when he peered into the writhing darkness below. But the waves were placid tonight. Soft and soundless. You could almost forget you were in the middle of nowhere, on a floating city in the middle of an endless sea. But ships were safe, he remembered. It was the sea you couldn't trust.

Dennis's long flirtation with the ocean began with his naval career. He had never been a good student. His parents begged him to take school seriously but he had other priorities. Women and liquor, he chuckled to himself. That's all he cared about when he was seventeen. Long nights spent drinking in the woods with people he could barely remember now. It took over a year of convincing but he had eventually gotten his parents to consent. He always wondered; was it because they believed him when he said this was his calling, to defend the country and all that. Or was it the desperate hopes of the parents of an irresponsible boy who had no other direction in life. He was inclined to believe the latter, especially because he didn't believe he was defending anything during his time on the USS Bainbridge.

Life on the destroyer had been dull. He remembered scrubbing decks and toilets, changing his sheets hundreds of times and lots of yelling. And no women. At least none worth looking at. He missed that the most. Living on that grey tanker had been the disappointment of his life. He wanted to travel, to see the world, to fuck all the women he could get his hands on. But none of that happened. Instead he spent his days on a gray ship, on gray waters with a gray future. When he was discharged it had almost come as a relief. It had only been six months into his service when a bunch of naval officers barged into his room and discovered his problem. The call home had ben unbearable; the sound of grief in his father's voice, his mother crying, his sister's stunned silence when she picked up the phone.

But that was a lifetime ago. Besides, it had all worked out for the better. His mother knew a guy from Carnival Cruise Line and he was able to pull some strings for an old friend's troubled son. He began working on the Fantasy  that summer. For a whole year he worked as a waiter, serving thousands of tourists from all over the country. It was an okay job and there were tons of girls and booze to keep him occupied. It paid well enough and he never lacked for entertainment, especially at some of the Caribbean ports they visited. It was easier to attend to his needs in the exotic places of the world. After about a year he had transferred to the Ecstasy. The ship had made port all over South America. His indulgences reached an all time high then. But after two years on Ecstasy he had risked too much. His suitemate, a beady eyed little twat from Albania had caught wind of his exploits and threatened to tell the captain. So Dennis found himself transferred to the Inspiration, the smallest ship in Carnival's fleet. There he was given a suite to himself but the ship's destinations had failed to provide him with anything of substance. It reminded him of those gray Navy days so much that he contemplated throwing himself overboard and letting the waves wash him away. It had never reached that point but he couldn't forget that his thoughts were once as dark as the very waters below him now.

The Paradise was his current home. It was a fine ship and the life he led here was calm and tranquil. His time on the Inspiration had mellowed his urges. When he wasn't waiting tables he was reading in his cabin or running around the track on the top deck. He lost weight and found himself as slim as he was back in his high school days. Some of the scarring on his arms had blended in nicely with his new tattoos, so he didn't have to worry about swimming in public. It was nearing on his third month on the Paradise and for the most part it had lived up to its name. But as he stared into the dark waters he couldn't help but remember his mother's singsong voice in the mornings, his father engulfed by his easy chair and his sister just coming home from school, still a girl back then. He remembered cooking for his family and drinking in the old garage, sitting in half forgotten cars with half forgotten friends. Where did it all go, he wondered.