She Who Must Be Obeyed

As Fate would have Her way, I was not des­tined to enjoy any plea­sure cruise, for She was bound and deter­mined to stir up the waters of life, enough to keep me at odds with the Navy. Unable to cir­cum­vent my fate for very long, I began to see why She had earned the name She Who Must Be Obeyed. Obvi­ously, I was being shown how to con­duct my self in this sit­u­a­tion, even though I had lit­tle rea­son for act­ing as such. I knew only that I should resist the Navy with my whole mind, whole heart and whole body, for the Navy had not the capac­ity to cap­ti­vate either my mind or my heart, both of which remained free to roam at will. And so did I, as the two learned to work together to free my body from the stran­gle­hold the Navy had on it, get into trou­ble, the next day.

Upon learn­ing, right before lunch, I was sched­uled to stand the after­noon watch, I hur­ried up to the mess decks, only to find a long line. So I grabbed an orange, to tide me over till din­ner, and raced up to the bridge where I was told to relieve the star­board look­out. Once up top­side, I was informed by the last watch to keep a sharp look­out for any torpedoes—dummies, that is, of course—headed our way, for we were involved in an anti­sub­ma­rine war­fare exer­cise with the other ships in the fleet. Hav­ing donned the micro­phone and head­set, I quickly scanned the sur­face of the water with my binoc­u­lars. How­ever, I saw noth­ing that even remotely resem­bled a tor­pedo. Instead, I felt as if it were going to be just another one of those long bor­ing watches, I had grown so used to stand­ing by now.

How quickly I found myself sit­ting out in the mid­dle of the ocean in a row­boat, or day­dream, with­out any means to pro­pel it. Sud­denly, from out across the water, I heard a young girl scream for help, as she strug­gled to keep her head above water. With­out think­ing, I leapt out of the boat and ran across the sur­face of the water to save her. Hav­ing pulled her from the water, I car­ried her in my arms, back to the boat. As I stepped into the boat, it dawned on me that I’d just walked on water. Astounded, I put her down in the boat.

“Are you all right?“ I inquired.

“Yes,“ she replied. “I’ll be fine as soon as I catch my breath.“

“What’re you doin’ way out here, by your­self?“ I asked.

“I’ve been wait­ing for you to save me,“ she replied.

“I don’t under­stand,“ I declared. “Who are you, anyway?“

“I’m the lit­tle girl you left to drown some years ago,“ she answered. “Don’t you remem­ber? You told your high school coun­selor about me.“

“Why that was just a story I made up,“ I responded, “to help me explain what I was feelin’ at the time.“

“No,“ she screamed. “It really happened—you left me to drown, choos­ing instead, to go off ’n’ play with your self.“

Momen­tar­ily struck speech­less by the truth of her words, I won­dered how what’d started out as make-​​believe could end up being so real.

“May I have a bite of your orange?“ she asked after a long pause.

“What orange?“ I mut­tered, for I still couldn’t believe all of this was really happening.

“The orange you have in your pocket,“ she replied.

“Of course!“ I exclaimed as I grabbed the orange and started to peel it. “How’d ya know I had an orange?“

“I’ve been wait­ing for you to peel it,“ she replied with a smile.

As I did so, I tossed the peel­ings over the side, com­pletely unaware that, in real­ity, I was bom­bard­ing the Cap­tain and the Offi­cer of the Deck with them.

Sud­denly, I heard the Cap­tain scream, “Why hasn’t the star­board watch reported the tor­pedo approach­ing the David­son off the star­board bow? I want that man relieved of his watch, imme­di­ately, god­damn it!“

I looked at the lit­tle girl in the boat, as she smiled at me with the most sym­pa­thetic look on her face. “You set me up for this, didn’t you?“ I demanded to know before she vanished.

As the row­boat sank beneath the sur­face of the water, I real­ized she had just tor­pe­doed me again. If these were the sort of tricks the lit­tle sprite was going to play on me, no won­der I had been so reluc­tant to res­cue her in the past.