USS DJT CV-082

Back in 2017, Chris Barrus and Kaleb Horton started up a group project, a fictional Twitter account with posts from and about the aircraft carrier USS DJT. They foolishly invited me to participate. For a while, I signed all my posts -BB, indicating that they came from Bosun Bosun, one of the damned crew of the ship. Chris often signed his -CO. Kaleb never signed his. Authorship degraded.

Kaleb didn't post on the account much. I ran amok like morning glories given radium-infused fertilizer.

We'd talked about doing something more with it. But maybe it was just going to be what it was. Maybe everything is just going to be what it's going to be and there's no hiding from that.

Kaleb died a couple nights ago. I've said a little but not enough and I don't know how much more I'm going to say on his death. I won't say his passing. Parts of him are still around and while not strictly alive, he's not all gone. He put some wounds in time, which if you've read my work is how we get ghosts.

So read a thing you've maybe not ever read before. I won't say it's complete. It's maddeningly not, because we didn't think it was going to be too much more than us screaming about how insane things were getting not even a month into the term, the first time around.

I miss him. I still can't believe it's real.

FEBRUARY 1

Welcome to the official Twitter account of CVN-82, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Donald J. Trump.

The Captain has forbidden all crew to refer to a curse upon the ship. The scratching noise on deck 8 has been traced to a power coupling.

Construction facts: seven people were killed building the "Big Donnie," but only five bodies were recovered.

Construction facts: unauthorized biological material placed by dock workers in the Big Donnie's keel were later incorporated as ballast.

MAs investigating the storage room fire on deck 6 report finding the word "REPENT" written in blood above the remnants of a meth lab.

CVN-82 fun fact: The USS Donald J Trump is named after the first president to take his own life while in office.

Ship's reactor will be offline from 1700 to 2200 for shielding adjustments. - CO

Crew without security clearances MUST stay off the flight deck between 2200 and 2230. -CO

CVN-82 fun fact: "The Donnie's" own film club meets the 1st Friday of every month in the Perry Theater on deck 4.

Crew, our planned stop in Darwin has been cancelled. Next shore leave will be at Midway Island -CO

A fight has broken out on the aft hangar deck. Security Alert Team (SAT) responding.

The fight has been contained. Three detained.

-

Bosun Bosun reporting for duty as ordered. I was told to expect nothing, for nothing is our due reward. Nothing awaits us. -BB

I have seen more blood gobs and teeth on the deck walking from my cabin to the mess hall than I have before in my life. -BB

As I settle into my bunk tonight, and for the first time since I left home, I am truly afraid. A gun waits under my pillow. -BB

And the fear is not that I will have to use it, but that it will instead be used upon me. I cannot meet sleep tonight. -BB

Thankfully I woke this morning unhurt and the pistol remained cold. -BB

A peculiar metallic clicking behind the wall aided in this. I have learned that Ensign Ord was responsible for the sound. -BB

He lifts weights like some men drink or smoke cigarettes. It is not a pastime driven by health, but instead by obsession. -BB

When I met him, I was struck not by vigor or youth or strength, but the opposite of all three, manifest in his habits. -BB

He looked into me and he said "We are the ship, you understand? You'll have a chance when you understand this." -BB

He went on to add "Even if you don't accept this for a fact, it remains true." He then pulled on a shirt that had never been laundered. -BB

And he, like I, went in search of a breakfast. I am sure that he wanted his still alive at eating. -BB

At 0900 the Wild Whales of VFA-55 will be making a fuel stop on their way home. Let's not have a repeat of what happened last time.

CVN-82 fun fact: The "Big Donnie" missed the Battle Of Truro Shoal when she snarled in a squid net while crossing the Pacific Garbage Patch.

This ship may be a conglomerate of open sores and ill will, but the coffee is outstanding. -BB

I have noticed that men in the mess do not look at one another, not even when they converse. -BB

As if the worlds that lay hidden in their runny scrambled eggs and toast are more compelling that seemingly human company. -BB

This, friends, is not a crew bound by trust, but by mistrust, if such a thing is possible. -BB

If anything is common between them, and I am careful to not use "us" as of yet--

-- it is a dim recognition that our fates are bound together, not by the sea, but by the metal skin enclosing us. -BB

I must, myself get some air, and some sky. -BB

But I cannot show weakness here. I must not. They may not look when they speak, but they watch when they do not. -BB

Remember, today is Groundhog Day and the Black Hands of VFA-23 will accept your tribute on the fantail at 1200. Mandatory! -CO

I have been approached by a man with less an offer and more a compulsion. -BB

I am to give over money to the Black Hands if I am to serve the duration of my voyage without permanent injury. -BB

He does not smile as he offers this. He is the kind of man who puts out a cigarette in your eye and kicks you for crying. -BB

So I decide to accept. I offer him a fold of bills, American green dollars. -BB

He sneers like a crooked knife slice and says "That crap isn't good here. Come to me when you have ship's scrip." -BB

He leaves me without injury and my coffee is bitter company. -BB

An electrical fire was extinguished in the forward radar bay. Investigators report that it was deliberately set.

I have waited these several hours to receive my assigned duty. I spent the time watching the ocean. It looks boiling lead. -BB

There was an electrical squawk on the com, coming like a gunshot, and it rang over the ocean without end. -BB

The voice was cyclopean, a voice from unsettled sleep lasting years or more. "Bosun Bosun. Wait-- Is this a joke?" -BB

"There better be nobody funnin' me," came the metallic growl. "If there's a Bosun Bosun on board, he best get hither." -BB

"And I mean right hither yesterday. Captain wants to clap his eyes to you. Don't make him go looking." -BB

They say the Captain has red hair, a young man's mane of it. They say he can pull you out of your laced boots with just a snap of wrist. -BB

They say so many things about him that they can not possibly be true. No tapestry could bear these yarns. -BB

But still, I am to meet him and there will come a time to see if these stories are true. -BB

As I pass by a clutch of sailors half-over the rail, I hear word of a fire. That only a new man would be fool enough to set. -BB

And by god I may be a new man here but I am no fool. Fools don't survive the razing of Chicago or the looting of Sydney. -BB

Who ate all the goddamn apricots? -CO

The Black Hand of VFA-23 has announced that they will be seizing all of deck 9. Crew is ordered to relocate immediately.

On the way to the Captain's station, a pale and sweaty sailor pressed to me a cloth sack filled with apricots. A mystery. -BB

An extra distribution of vape charges has been authorized for any crew with information on who painted “REPENT!” on the reactor room door.

A presentation on the dangers of Substance M will begin at 1830 in the Perry Theater. Remember that we will start testing next week!

A stabbing has been reported on deck three. MA has been dispatched.

-

I have stood in front of this door for the longest time, waiting for my knock to be answered. -BB

I find myself wondering if the Captain is indeed real or a a fevered birth of the brain too long confined on this craft. -BB

But these apricots are delicious. Better than any I ever had in Barstow. -BB

It's getting dark now. Torn between returning to my cabin and waiting here, but he was specific. -BB

The door opens with a cold click and I am snapped to my feet by a will that is not my own. -BB

"Don't come in," the voice wheezes. It is not one of command or even a living voice as I would reckon it. -BB

"Are those apricots I smell?" The voice is like sandpaper coughed out of a lung. "Answer me, boy." -BB

"Sure they are. Good ones, too." I hope that this offering will smooth my way with him. -BB

"You don't look like no Black Hand to me," he barked and then into a coughing laugh. "But come in, all the same. Come in, boy." -BB

The door opened and the room beyond it was as lightless as the night I stood in. Not so much as a candlelight on the other side. -BB

"Now or not. I don't want to be letting any of the flies in." I can not see the man who is speaking, so imagine it to be the ship itself -BB

I step over the threshold, sill marked with double skids like a procession of unwilling men dragged in by their heels. -BB

The door closes behind and I suddenly long for the darkness outside.

-

The com snaps after a time. "Reclamation to the Captain's quarters. One stretcher. No hurry." The voice is metallic and flat.

The Captain, laconic in silhouette, eats apricots from a bag, one by one and he spits the stones into the sea.

And there, who knows, maybe they will find purchase in the blood-salty water, to grow into trees, entire forests of fruited trees.

And this might happen because there are still spaces for wonder.

And the Captain and his ship will not be here to curse such a place with his vision or shadow.

-

A fight has broken out on the flight deck.MA squad en route.

NO78

LIMA INDIA ALFA ROMEO

hello, the red light is on now, there is a new message

Replying to @USSDonJTrump

the liars are coming.

I don't have much time. We never did find out what happened to the first Captain.

Of course he had to go. The goddamn ship ran into a sandbar and the reactor scrammed. Big coverup but nothings been right since.

Look, just between you and me, right? I feel damned. We all feel damned. Damnation is contagious. You start acting like the dead.

The Black Hand always were a biker gang. Being damned just made then better at it. The reactor guys though... they made it a cult.

-

I hear that the Captain is going to ban all games of chance on the decks. I hear this but do not believe it.

No man would be fool enough to turn off the single light in Hell. Not even God above would dare this. Even God sleeps with an eye open.

For God must surely know that the Black Hand would cut his throat, and if they did not, then Skinny would.

But this brings us to the question of Skinny and whether a man that even the Captain will not speak of could exist.

You, though, began this by asking me about gambling on the ship, and there are no games of chance here. Everything is rigged tight.

And I will note that you were the one who invited talk of Skinny. You opened that door and I will not watch what follows.

I must go now. And you, you must not stay. His name has been heard and by now it stirs even the deep guts of the ship.

What's this? You accuse me of fear? This is not fear, but something with more power than even that. Fear can be fought.

Some clown has put on an old song. "Somehow somewhere somebody must have kicked you around some" it goes, electric over the coms.

The Black Hands below deck sing along without mirth, bragging about being taken away and held for ransom. They're giggling now.

I fail to see the humor in any of this. But soon enough, they will get bored with laughter and turn to more brutal diversions.

The Captain is swearing now, a stream of profanity that seems to have no earthly end.

I do not know the target of his invective, nor the subject, only the rawness of his anger. Indeed the whole ship knows.

Even the tittering Black Hands have gone silent and scattered. His howls ride out on the wind to any ears the sea might have.

Wait. He's stopped. In mid-phrase. I would say that the coms have been sabotaged, but it was his unaided voice I heard. He just stopped.

A small part of me wants to venture above to see if he is still alive. But I know that none of us are so fortunate that he has found...

...his death, sudden or otherwise. I am afraid to my bones that he is simply waiting and planning now.

The Captain plans like other men dream, and often to the same utility.

-

Tonight, I watched a sailor make a mistake. He asked one of the cooks what was in the pot.

The cook said nothing, scowling as he tossed the ladle into the pot, which was big enough to cook a whole calf in.

He said, as he undid his apron strings, "You know the rules and now you get to cook."

All eyes fell upon him and the cook glared at him with eyes that were as blue as a broken heart.

The new, volunteer, cook took up the ladle like it was a freshly-severed arm and said "I still don't know what's in here."

Breakfast this morning was unspeakable. Even the coffee repelled.

The. Coffee.

-

I look out at the moon each night and I envy it that it gets to drown and have at least some hours' peace.

The Captain has made good on his mad promise. He has confiscated all dice and cards, even straws for lots.

Rutherford, short and handsome, has made a game of guessing how many fingers he has out behind his back.

There are sailors aboard desperate enough for chance and its entertainments that they play this foolish game and wager upon it.

The only thing that has made them stop is not the loss of their hoarded scrip, but the threat that the Captain will start removing digits.

The digits of players, you understand. Not Rutherford's, which are magnificent and perfectly kept.

The worst part of all this is that he sound of dice and gambling is stilled and you can hear the whispers from the lowest decks.

And for that, I shall not sleep tonight, not even after the moon's submersion.

Just a reminder that I need performance reviews from all senior officers by Thursday of next week. I know that I can count on you. -CO

-

Saturday nights on board are the longest, dragging out in cruelties both real and merely anticipated.

Saturday also sees mandatory dance nights on the flight deck. The landing lights are lit as well.

I can not tell if this is to make the forced amusement more hellish or jovial. There is no clear answer to that.

But in the red limning, we all are made to dance like scarecrows in a cyclone, groundless and whirling.

And I do not say this as boast, but as warning.

There is the first splash of the evening, the sound of a rejected partner or a grudge made manifest.

Usually it is only the one or a handful, but there have been nights where riot spilled into the salt and sea.

Anger on the deck leading to what a dullard might call a baptism. Only these blessings never keep.

The blessings themselves washed away again and again, but at least we can debauch in cleanliness.

Ezra, the only Black Hand who might be called the Boss, carries with him a strongbox, hefted in a grip that could smash love itself.

And as he passes, he swears an oath that inside this box is all the scrip on the ship, all there is to be had.

He intends to set it afire. The whole lot of it. His reason?

"Without chance, without gambling, then what good is the damn stuff?" He says this so he is sure the Captain hears.

Ezra and the Captain are playing a pantomime, but more than that, they play for the adoration of all aboard.

They have played at this for a time, a very long one. When you are trained for war and not given one, well...

...before long, you find one or you are forced to gin it up yourself. When there is no enemy without, it is sought within.

Ezra and the Captain know that they can only hope to monger grievance, but they have countless ways to do so.

The war on gambling started but the Captain will wheel into the war upon debt that Ezra is about to ignite.

Whatever comes next will not be in my hands alone or any one man's, and that fact bears me only upset.

He dumps over the strongbox and spills out enough scrip to buy the soul of every man aboard. He burns it with glee.

The men cheer, thinking themselves shed the yoke of debt, but I know that instead they have just signed over to Ezra's service.

And that fact sets me to drink.

-

Sunday night is the only night that the mess is fish-free. It's Friday all other nights.

Though there is no fish on our trays, the fish is in the air itself like trench gas.

Now, fish-free Sunday does not preclude black-hearted jokerey by the cooks.

There was the Sunday that we were fed from the tentacles of a monstrous squid, which must have matched the ship in length.

Great logs of rubbery flesh, as if hewn from Leviathan itself, wrested from nightmare. The stench made even Woolworth sick.

And I have seen for myself Woolworth eating with relish, food that even the ship's rats refused.

The men protested with vigor and wrath, demanding terrestrial meat as was their due.

The chief cook, God rest his withered soul, stood on a table ringing a tray with a tenderizing mallet to quiet the clamor.

He then opened it to a page and licked his thumb with a tongue that any sane doctor would have removed as tumor.

He mashed his thumb down and yelled "Now this book, which is the truth on this water, tells me that the squid, no matter how big...

...is no kin to a fish. Hell, it ain't even a kin to a whale!"

The matter was settled to his satisfaction, but to no one else's. as with so many others, this transgression was the last we saw of him.

-

We were awakened before dawn, every sailor to the last. We were roused and assembled to witness a hanging.

The Captain stood before the gallows as the first light washed him and said only that "This man is a traitor, and his prize is death."

We stood there for what seemed to drag out to a geologic age, shivering and watching his last breath.

Not a man among us could name him, and all of did tallies in our heads, counting friends and enemies alike.

If any could name the traitor, none of us dared.

The Captain did not dismiss us with orders, instead cutting the line that held the man, sending him to the water.

He split the surface graceful as a dolphin, leaving a wake that would have been envied by champion divers.

And why not? He carried no more burdens on his shoulders now, not a weight or thought to bend or contort him wrongly.

He had a grace in passing that men can not grasp in the toils of their own daily lives.

Then the Captain laughed, a coarse bark like a seal, as if he had never seen such a ridiculous thing in his life.

And it wasn't until that moment that I truly understood him. But I do now, I surely do.

And in that terrible moment, I was gripped by what my grandmother would call a reckoning.

Where the knowing is so deep that your bones break and then are re-set differently, only to grow into these new shapes forever after.

I don't know what is happening any more. The man hung this morning was a Black Hand, that much I know.

And I fear that the Captain has declared war against them. Ezra has been licking his chops at this.

If the ship still is seaworthy after this war, then I will be the most surprised among us. The Black Hand controls the engines. The engines.

Singly, either man could introduce all of us to ruin. If they battle openly, we will burn to the waterline.

On a lighter note, a cache of bottled soda has been uncovered. Unfortunately, the lion's share of it is Moxie, not Coca-Cola.

I watched a line of men steal away from the corner of the storage bay, cradling bottles like they were babies.

Since I have a church key in my cabin, I am the one-eyed man among the blind.

There is, of course, a rumor that this bounty has been placed by the medical researchers. If that is true, no man must drink any of this.

You have to understand that when I refer to the medical researchers, that they are monsters and not men at all.

They are not doctors, so much as they are re-shapers of flesh and brains. They do not practice science, but instead madness.

I hold no truck with these creatures. I do not traffic with them, not even for the promise of eternal life, which is their damnable goal.

One of them, at least. The other aims they pursue are less...wholesome and best not contemplated.

Half of the men who drank the liberated Moxie have reported a strange itching sensation, beneath their skin, unreachable.

How very much I've tried my best to give you a good life. #MAGA

But in spite of all of my trying a handful of our people, with their lies, have made our lives impossible. #MAGA

There's no way to detach ourselves from what's happened today.

Not only are we in a compound situation, not only are there those who have left and committed the betrayal of the century…

some have stolen children from others, and they are in pursuit right now to kill them because they stole their children.

And we are sitting here waiting on a powder keg. #MAGA

They are bring a new man on board. From Washington. On a helicopter.

A helicopter! I'll believe it when I see it fly and throw rotorwash all across the deck. No man here has seen a working aircraft.

Not for ages. And not for lack of fuel, for the tanks below decks are full and have been since I got on board.

We shall see, but for myself, I remain dubious, and would sooner believe Ann-Margaret would put on a show here than an aircraft land.

Even if it were true, a man from Washington would be chewed to bits within an hour. Robert's Rules of Order has no standing here.

By heaven, what is that sound. Like a great beating upon the wind.

Every sailor not sidelined by the damnable itch is rushing to the outer decks to see what's coming.

I'll be damned. It's a helicopter. A Sea King. I thought the last of those had been decommissioned when I was a boy.

It swoops in slow and low after a single pass like a vulture come to pick at the softest parts of the cow left to rot in the sun.

If Ann-Margaret is on that vehicle, I'll never say an ill word about the universe or its workings again.

But this is the ship, and all of us pooled together don't have the luck that the convict on his last walk does.

-

We've been so betrayed. We have been so terribly betrayed. (Music and singing) But we've tried and as (inaudible)

If this only works one day it was worthwhile. (Applause.) Thank you.

Whoever was on board the helicopter, we were not allowed to see them disembark.

The Captain's guard busied themselves making sure that no man clapped eyes upon the occupant as they disembarked.

I know that I repeat myself, because this is the only way to remember it clearly.

No less than five sailors tried to rush the vehicle as it stood on the deck, not to see the occupants, but in hopes of escape.

Fools. The only thing that leaves this ship are the bodies of criminals and the smoke from our fires.

I don't know which is more intolerable: the glibness or the brutality.

“Now what's going to happen here in a matter of a few minutes is that one of those people on that plane is going to shoot the pilot”

“I'm going to be just as plain as I know how to tell you. I've never lied to you. I never have lied to you. I know that's what's gonna happen”

“What's with being so bewildered with many, many pressures on my brain, seeing all these people behave so treasonous”

“there was too much for me to put together, but I now know what he was telling me. And it'll happen. If the plane gets in the air even.”

“…take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece and step over quietly because we are not committing suicide”

“We can't go back; they won't leave us alone. They're now going back to tell more lies, which means more congressmen.”

“And there's no way, no way we can survive.” #time

Someone on board has snapped. They might be so far gone that lighting the fuse makes sense.

-

It's true. Every bit of it.

I don't even know where to begin, so let's start with the visitor.

He is from Washington. Whether Washington still stands is not yet clear. The Captain will let none of us see him for ourselves.

Some men say it's the President. But I tell you the President has been dead for years.

And if that is not true, then we are at sea in ways that I can not even describe to you. You either know it already or you never will.

The men who drank the stolen sodas? They will not come out of their cabins. Men from Research quarantined them in the night.

And I have received a new post. I am to report to Provisioning this morning. I do not like this, for the Black Hand runs them.

And between the hanging and the gambling ban, they have been quick to anger of late.

And all of these things I say are true. Ask any man who will speak to you.

The President? My God.

-

Today, the Captain got on the horn and gave a long speech about his the sky was green today. He marveled at its emerald hue.

At the soft crushed-velvet texture of it. He went on further to say that if all the sailors on board would agree...

Why, he would see fit to allow dice and cards and games of chance to be played again. He would even let us bet on the rising of the sun.

All men had the opportunity to mark their assent by rapping on the steel wall of the ship after the Captain counted down.

As this happened, the Black Hands filtered through the ship, telling everyone they could reach that any man who knocked the wall...

...would find later that night that whichever hand had done so would be removed and turned into a candle, that...

...they would fashion a forest of Hands of Glory, if need be, and they would cast the blackest spell imaginable with these artifacts.

Every man knew what would become of them then, even the wretches who languished down below decks in the throes of research-bred disease.

The Captain began his count. Three. Two. One.

And the ship held its breath.

I counted to twenty-three in my head before the Captain whispered "You ungrateful curs. I'll see you all drown."

I wondered if this was part of a pantomime being played, not between the Captain and Ezra, but between the Captain and the Visitor.

I could find no answer with any surety. It was like grasping an eel with my fingers, always elusive and prone to bite.

-

Perhaps I told you once that I am to be serving in Provisioning and Acquisitions. That is not a lie.

But since the Captain and the Black Hand have gone to a silent and sullen war, that work has stopped.

We are to have no contact with other ships of the fleet, and this condition is easy to fulfil.

More importantly, we are not allowed to cast for fish or to dredge for forage. This is the third day now.

The new cook has been forced to undergo...questionable measures. This, enhanced by his tyro status, has made the mess hall a special torture

I know for a fact that the hot dogs served for lunch today are merely crudely-disguised rat. In some cases, un-skinned.

No seagull is safe, though the discharge of weapons in pursuit of such meat has been disallowed.

And while the dredge is inoperable, surface trawling can not be outlawed completely. A whole jellyfish goes for a hundred in new scrip.

I can not help but be troubled by the thought that we have funds to be used for provisioning, they are nowhere to be found.

Somewhere, men are living like gods on this stolen wealth. Better than Ezra, even. Unthinkable.

And when they are found, I do not want to contemplate the punishments that will be visited upon them.

The wrath of a hungry man goes beyond the pale, and rightfully so, if their food has been stolen from them.

In the meantime, I see no newly-visible thinness on the Captain's frame. And Ezra himself is in no danger of starvation.

If enough men do the calculus that I have arrived at on my own... I can not continue this line of thought, for it leads to a terrible end.

A note pressed into my hand tells me that Research is more than happy to share their stores with the hungry sailors.

I crumple it and throw it to the chop and waves, for there are not yet men aboard hungry enough to eat damnation itself.

-

Where have I been? I have been tested, friends. Tested by this crew and the sea, but mostly, tested by this iron ship.

And I can tell you with shame that burns me to my very bones that my measure was found to be lacking.

It started, not with the Visitor from Washington, but that man was the herald of what would follow.

And I can tell you this now, but the men who whispered that the visitor was the President? Those men were not wrong.

The president. Aboard our ship. I can tell you that I did not believe it until I saw the ring on his fingers.

Great fingers like tree branches, like wood aged and sanded, every wrinkle meticulously placed with intent.

That ring shone like it had been passed across the palms of a thousand pawnbrokers, polished with nervous sweat and waiting greed.

The President. Good God I could not believe it.

And if you are struck with fear at why the President would be here and not in Washington, trust me that you are not enough afraid.

But I race ahead of myself.

If the President is on board, that can only mean that there is a roiling crater where Washington used to be.

This is why the radiomen are sworn to secrecy and the Black Hand controls every piece of mail that comes on board.

The Black Hand has a stranglehold on even the whispers that come onto this ship. We are not allowed dreams that are not our own.

When we are told the liars are coming, that they are on their way, well I tell you, friend, they are already here and always have been.

The lie is all that keeps us afloat now. We are under power and at course by its will. Lies are the lodestone in our compass.

Even the stars in the firmament, they are the cruelest of hoaxes, light falling from them even as they are extinct and cold.

There is no world of any certainty beyond the iron that I can touch. And if that iron is something I can hold, then it is something...

It is something that I can wield. For the iron is weight and certainty and maybe that alone is enough.

Iron and the sea are true. One will eat the other. But without iron, the sea cannot be crossed.

I am so tired, my friends.

It is these pills. They only feed me pills and bread and water. They tell me I can eat either the pills or bullets.

A note has been passed under the grate in my cell door. "From a friend," came the voice, whiskey-hissed.

I have stared at that rumpled and sweat-matted piece of paper since what feels like the birth of time itself, for I have no friends here.

Instead of reading the note, I eat this morning's pills and a salted roll, knowing that there will be punishment if my tray is not empty.

I grab the note and crumple it up in my hand, afraid of what will happen if it is discovered.

For I know I have no friends here and the calculating brutality of the guards can be triggered by any perceived slight or violation.

They shot the doctor today. Didn’t even march him to the deck. Shot him at his desk, cigarette in hand.

I heard someone tried to move him, maybe just to steal the smokes in his desk drawer. Well, whoever shot the doctor shot them too.

-

I could feel the ship list beneath my feet, even within the confines of my cell, close as a coffin.

It is one thing to see a motion and another to have that motion become the entirety of your world.

I cannot even tell you what has happened. We have taken on water, that much I know. The horizon itself is broken.

The motion of the ship is addled, like a chick hatched from a poisoned egg.

There is a tremoring hesitation, unsteady even in pause. There is always a sickening motion, looped back upon itself.

The sea itself is palsied and we are riding upon it without ease.

Do not ask why hunger has not taken me. I can not tell you myself.

Breakfast of the damned.

At this breakfast, it is not the damned who eat. Instead they themselves are eaten.

The damned themselves do not hunger, and if they do, it is only for release.

They have let me out of the stockade and I am wondering when the ship got so big.

There is a vastness in the corridors that I swear was not present before. I am looking for a corner to press myself into.

I crave the touch of metal and gravity, close enough to my own flesh that I mistake the steel for skin.

I do not want this freedom that is thrust upon me. I fear it is a last meal chosen for me, for there is nothing else to offer.

Beneath my feet, the ocean lurches and the ship lists like a giant shrug of defeat or resignation.

The ship is sinking. But my deepest fear is that it will not sink, that the sea will reject it.

-

Bill KristolVerified account @BillKristol

Prediction: There will never be a USS Donald J. Trump.

USS Donald J. Trump Retweeted Bill Kristol

Immersed in pervasive madness members of the crew doubt their own existence.

Steve Bannon @PRESlDENTBANNON

Concept picture of USS Donald J. Trump looks great.

USS Donald J. Trump Retweeted Steve Bannon

The grass transformed when the Black Hand mistakenly used the Blood Of The Disciples as fertilizer.

-

They say there is a wave coming.

I know there is no wave.

This ship is eternal, beyond the men aboard it.

Someone, a monster, is reading a letter from a nine-year-old boy back home. They’re reading it with a lisp as if of childish innocence.

The lost tooth gives authenticity, but we all know the note itself is a fake, written by a committee, trying to trick us into believing...

…that there is a world outside these cabins, outside the steel churn of the waves, outside this prison horizon.

There is nothing outside.

The letter talks of birthday cake, of puppy dogs, Betty Boop cartoons and sunshine.

None of these things are real, but we’re to believe.

You can survive any ordeal if you can be tricked into believing in a life beyond it.

That’s what the morale office depends on.

I still haven’t been able to leave this hall. The letter reading stopped hours ago, but I’d rather be in my cell still.

The fact that I can’t go back to my cell and seal the door closed, even with lack of food and water, this terrifies me.

-

“Land!” blurts out the loudspeaker, compressed and metallic so that it sounds like a needle. “Land!” it repeats once every 15 seconds.

This continues for three full minutes, long enough that its cessation is cause for physical relief.

Not from the sound, which was painful, but from the word. The concept itself of solid land. Stability is anathema here.

Land.

I’ve never been so frightened.

After the intercom call, I can hear the howling hordes below. They demand to be engaged.

We will not hear the end of this soon.

-

The knowledge is that the Captain is mad, that the reality he inhabits is one that none of us recognize.

Mad and powerless. He is a catspaw for faceless others, and in his weakness, the Captain does their bidding.

At first, I thought this realization would be a relief, would push some of the weight off my shoulders. Instead, it is doubled.

But I take comfort in the knowledge that he is smaller even than myself, that every morning is a new torture for him.

The greatest lesson of this captain is showing us that the qualities civilization most prizes are chains.

The Captain is a man who thought he could leash the appetites of every broken, every desperate and hungry man. He can’t even rein his own.

Every day is Halloween in this place where only the damned walk and talk and pretend they’re alive. I know this because the Captain says.

OCTOBER 23