42 – Aliens
In the North Pacific, all we knew were howling gales and ice-cold, violent seas. Entering the strait of Juan de Fuca, the universe shifted radically. Our instincts and emotions must have been running absolutely amok. The sudden calm was freakishly unnerving—foreboding. Wind speed: zero. We were adrift. Directionless. Boadicea rose and fell on huge, glassy swells. It felt as though the ocean itself was breathing; catching its breath before another battle.
On deck, we sat motionless under dripping, lifeless sails, staring out at what didn't seem possible. There was nothing to talk about, nothing to do. I'm pretty sure, we were both a wee bit shell shocked.
Off our left side, shrouded in mist, an immense, dark forest slid by: Vancouver Island; The West Coast Trail; paths I'd rambled.
So, where were the tears of joy? The feelings of accomplishment? The slow-motion montage of heroic flashbacks? I gazed at Elena; looked into the only human face I still knew, and saw nothing but exhaustion. Resignation. Fear.
Further into the Strait, the mist and clouds lifted. “I cannot believe what I am seeing is real.” Elena gaped at snowy mountains on the American side. “I have never seen before, such mountains, with snow on top. Hard to believe such things exist.”
Sending email ahead of our arrival—with a laptop duct-taped to the table—I heard the motor grind, groan, and growl. “What the—”
“Meeeeaaag!” Came from the cockpit.
The motor coughed and attempted to die until Elena disengaged the propeller. “Serpents! Snakes are everywhere. I think in the propeller!”
“Snakes!” A psychotic break? I scrambled topside, relieved to see that we really were entangled in a mass of hideous, boat-eating serpents. Laughing, I told her, “Kelp! This stuff is called, kelp. It's an aquatic plant. You know, seaweed.”
“Never have I seen such seaweed. Everything here is huge, like from Tolkien or Doyle.”
Eventually free of the writhing mass of giant kelp, a pod of gargantuan, black and white, toothy dolphins surrounded us. Snorting and hissing clouds of steam, they came alongside to give Elena the evil eye. I guess I did little to calm her panic by saying, “Orcas! Lenna, these are killer whales! Do you know how lucky we are to see them, to have them approach, to greet us and welcome us home? Do not be afraid. They are beautiful, intelligent creatures.”
“I do not love such things that are killers and so huge. This place to which we have come is like another planet, and I am the small alien that does not belong.”
~
You'd have thought that once we were finally, motoring sedately through Canadian territorial waters, we made it. Could wrap this narrative up with a choir of angels and home-safe codswallop. Right?
Wrong!
The Canada-USA border runs right down the middle of the Strait, and the bloody Canadian side of it was closed by the United States Department of Homeland Security for, ken this: bloody gunnery exercises!
“Hoe-lee kapoosta! All traffic is being diverted to the American side. That is through US territorial waters. Lenna, we're majorly buggered! Close enough to spit, and they finally get us. Whyyyyyy!?”
“I did not expect something good. So, stop going crazy! I have never thought this world was for me. I have only sailed here to be with you. It does not have to be here. It does not have to be Canada. We can go back to the sea to wait for the gunning to be finished. We have still diesel and water and food, and we are still together, so nothing is as wrong as you say. And you blow away like crazy?”
“Blow up.” I fought to get a grip.
“What it is, this 'up'?”
“Blow up, like a bomb. You said, ‘blow away.’ And speaking of blowing, you think it’s a good idea to go back into a gale that will be right on our nose? Personally, I’d rather be cannon fodder for the US Coast Guard than go back out there!”
I'd been up for maybe thirty-six hours; thought we'd made it. Bollocks, I was seeing places I'd camped at along the shore. We were that close. “For weeks we fought north to clear the thousand-mile chasm, and now this? This can't be real, Len. This can't be happening. I must be losing my mind.” It's true. I was actually on the edge, at the breaking point. Worst of all, was thinking that after all we had gone through to get so close, I'd doomed Elena. I had to regroup, reassess, reboot before I lost it. “You're at the helm. You decide. Hold position here, go back to sea, transit US waters. It’s up to you now. It’s your ship to steer. I'm leaving it up to you.”
She looked at me, frightened. Searching for any reassuring telltale. Then she straightened up, took a deep breath and told me to go to bed. I crawled into our stinky nest below deck and tried not to fall apart. I thought about all I left unfinished. Merely a handful of miles lay between me and my dream-home: the perfect Arts & Crafts bungalow. The ideal past and perfect future I had been building, by hammer and by hand, was right bloody there. I should have felt something—anything—crawling along, so close to home. But I felt nothing. What was wrong with me? I had worked so hard, shed so many tears, spent so much money for that life, that dream. How was it even possible that after Elena and I risked everything fighting so hard and for so long to make our way home, I felt nothing but empty and hollowed out?
It made no sense, and that frightened me more than anything. My unused, return plane ticket was crammed in the chart drawer with other soggy and mouldering vital documents. I tried to imagine Elena in the world we were closing on. I couldn't, not in a million years. As she explained, she truly was an alien.
She told me later, that while I crumbled like a stale biscuit, she steered into US waters and joined the line of ships heading east. She concentrated on the droning of the engine and the calm, dark water ahead of our bow. At one point, a US Coast Guard cutter roared by, close enough to wave. Stoic, Elena froze in place until it was safely distant. She kept telling herself that every twelve minutes put her one-mile closer to crossing the border back to the Canadian side. She didn't engage the autopilot. Didn't even sit down. She just stood behind the wheel, counting every minute, every mile.
In the dead of night, Boadicea rounded Race Rocks lighthouse. A galaxy of light unfurled before Elena.
She called me to the cockpit. “Victoria?”
“Oh, aye.” I nodded. It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t recall, or even imagine, myself among those lights; a town. My hometown.
Someone boarded a plane from there more than a year ago. How-in-hell could it possibly have been me?
But, was it?
Whomever it was, vanished in Ukraine. In Kyiv. At McDonald’s, along with a Russian from Ivanovo.
They were never seen again. And rumour has it, they have truly become aliens.
