The Gilgamesh Conspiracy

by Jeffrey Fleming

  ‘Well he had it coming to him, didn’t he?’

  ‘So I understand. Anyway, here we both are so we’ll do our best to get along.’ She smiled. ‘Is that ok by you.’

  ‘It’s great by me.’

  Gerry found that she and Angela got along fine. Although not well educated she was bright and she had held a responsible job as a petrol station manager until her partner’s inclination to abuse her had reached a dangerous level. Gerry thought that if she had been able to afford a really good lawyer, Angela would have avoided a custodial sentence altogether, but her boyfriend had suffered a fractured skull and had lain in a coma for two months.

  One night Gerry woke up and heard Angela moaning in the bunk above her. It was not the first time but she had decided that she would say something. ‘Can you learn to do that more quietly, do you think?’

  Instantly there was complete stillness from her cellmate. The next morning it was plain that Angela was highly embarrassed.

  ‘Sorry, but I had to say something,’ Gerry apologised.

  ‘I suppose you work it all off with exercise, you never do it.’

  ‘I’ve been in here for four years, and no amount of exercise is enough,’ Gerry replied. ‘I’m just, well, quiet.’

  Three months later Angela heard Gerry weeping softly in the middle of the night and amazed that her tough cellmate would ever display such emotion she climbed down and asked her what was wrong.

  ‘It’s my daughter’s fifth birthday today,’ Gerry said.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it at all?’

  ‘Maybe I do. Sit down on the edge there, so I can talk quietly.’ Gerry described in vague terms how she had become pregnant, how her partner had died and how she had given birth in prison and given up her baby for adoption.

  ‘No wonder you’re so sad,’ Angela said. On a sudden impulse she lay down beside her on the narrow bunk and gave her a hug. Her arms lingered around her and Gerry felt an unaccountable urge. She reached up and cupped Angela’s breast. She felt her tense up but then she relaxed again. After a few seconds Angela asked ‘why are you doing that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gerry replied. ‘Why aren’t you stopping me?’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ Angela replied. Gerry rolled over to face her. They stared at each other for a moment and then began to kiss. Angela felt Gerry’s hands on her bottom pulling them closer together.

  ‘We’re still not gay are we?’ Angela asked after a minute.

  No, just sex starved.’ Then she giggled quietly when she felt a hand slide under her shirt.

  ‘Do you think we should stop?’ Angela asked quietly.

  ‘No I don’t,’ she whispered back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  As darkness fell she folded the canopy around her. ‘I’m like a Cornish pasty,’ she muttered, ‘or a pizza calzone. She lay back underneath the canopy and stared up at the sky and tried to go to sleep, but her lack of physical activity and anxiety stopped her from feeling tired. ‘Maybe I’ll count sheep,’ she announced quietly. Nobody answered.

  ‘I said maybe I’ll count sheep!’ she shouted.

  ‘There you go Gerry, nobody gives a shit,’ she said.

  White lights flashing high overhead caught her eye. ‘Oh look there’s another aeroplane,’ she announced. ‘I hope you’re enjoying the flight madam. What would you like to drink? Diet Coke? Gin and tonic? Red wine? A nice big glass of cool water then? Sparkling or still? Sparkling perhaps, with ice and lemon. Something for dinner? Fillet steak? Seared Sea Bass? Chicken Jalfrezi? Caprese salad followed by Saltimbocca Romana? Double bacon cheese burger and fries? No nothing for me thank you, I’m not hungry. Though maybe you could give me a couple of paracetamol for my headache and then I think I’ll just stare at the stars and wait to die if that’s alright.’

  She saw what appeared to be a star moving slowly overhead. ‘A moving star? That’s unusual,’ she muttered. ‘Must be a satellite, or maybe the international space station.’ She wondered what life was like in orbit. Definitely not as boring as floating in a raft. Probably more interesting than being in prison. Higher self-esteem, certainly; less personal danger, probably. She fell asleep.

  Dawn the next morning proved to be a slow progression from a delicate white glow to the east followed by a steady brightening of the sky from starlit black through to dull blue until the sun hauled itself relentlessly clear of the horizon to shine with increasing strength. Gerry gazed all round at the cloudless sky and wearily put the canopy back up. She picked up the bottle and swigged back the brackish water. ‘That doesn’t taste as bad as I thought. Maybe that means it will do me some good.’

  Rather to her surprise she needed to pee a little and decided to add it to the water that swirled round the edge of the raft. A sudden stinging sensation made her flinch and she examined herself. ‘That’s great; a urinary tract infection or something. Just to make my last days more interesting. Thank you God. That’s alright Miss Tate, take these antibiotics and drink plenty of water.’

  She gave a little giggle. ‘Don’t forget; drink plenty of water. Yes doctor. Don’t forget…drink plenty of water. Don’t forget Miss Tate…drink plenty of water.’

  ‘Plenty of water.’

  ‘Plenty of water.’

  ‘Plenty…of…water.’

  ‘Plen……teeee.’

  ‘I’m cold.’ She shivered. ‘Why am I so cold? The sun’s gone down. No it hasn’t. It’s just turned cloudy. Over there, that grey mist beneath the cloud looks like rain. Shit!’

  Summoning up her last reserves of energy Gerry hauled down the canopy and set it back up with the underside on top and formed into a funnel as she had practised. She had her bottles ready and her sweater and blouse laid out in case the funnel effect didn’t work. She sat there shivering hoping and hoping as the rain came towards her. At one time she thought it was going to pass her by but suddenly she was caught in a deluge. She filled up a water bottle and tried some. Yuk! Salt and chemicals. She filled it again; tried it and swore her foulest oaths at the taste. A third time and this time she drank and drank until there were two litres of water sloshing about in her belly. She began to drink some more but there was a warning twinge of pain deep inside her. She filled up the two water bottles and carefully stoppered them and then she lay back and let the rain wash over her laughing a little and occasionally mumbling ‘plenty of water.’ Then she doubled up in pain as her digestive system tried to cope with the sudden flood of liquid after days of deprivation, alternately hugging up her knees and then arching her back as she tried to alleviate the spasms.

  Gerry groaned in exhaustion as she wrapped the canopy around herself. By the light of the moon her watch told her that the time was somewhere close to midnight. Her stomach had settled down and although she was no longer suffering from a raging thirst, she was miserably scared and lonely. She had spent many days in solitary confinement in prison for her multitude of misdemeanours, but the guards had always been close by and had provided some human contact. Back then she had defiantly decided that solitary confinement was easily endured, but now she realised the true meaning of solitude she realised how hard it was to bear. She tried to replay movies in her mind as a way to alleviate the tedium and occasionally sunk into bouts of fitful sleep as her memories took her off into dreams. The night slowly dragged on towards dawn and another day on the life raft began.

  ‘Wind - light; sea state - moderate; cloud - broken layer of stratus to the southwest; temperature - probably going to be hot.’ She reached for a bottle as the sun cleared the horizon and drank a quarter litre of water, then tensed her stomach muscles in anticipation of painful cramps. After a few minutes she relaxed and said ‘Well I seem to have got away with that; now what shall I wear today? Smelly underwear, sweaty and salty trousers, shirt and sweater slightly washed in rainwater or maybe nothing at all?’ She looked down at her body. Her skin was a strange mixture of even suntan and blotchy red sunburn, decorated further by fading bruises. Her face
still ached dully where she had been hit. She ran her tongue over her missing tooth and felt the crusty scab where her lip had been split. Then with misplaced satisfaction she saw that she had lost fat over her stomach and her abdominal muscles were once again displayed with a definition she had not shown for many years. Apart from that she felt physically in fairly good shape, apart from one small problem. She squatted down and tried peeing; she groaned but then on reflection decided the stinging pain had subsided. ‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ she muttered.

  She prodded the sides of the raft and decided that she could afford to work up a sweat using the hand pump to get it fully inflated again and afterwards she felt better for the twenty minutes of physical effort required. She lay back on the canopy and as the body heat generated by her exertion subsided she folded the fabric back over herself for warmth and watched the dawn’s progress. After an hour the sun rose further until it began to shine into her eyes. She closed them and settled back further under the canopy and tried to decide if she should get dressed or raise the canopy into position and then she fell into a deep sleep.

  The raft plunged down the side of a wave and Gerry rolled out of the folded canopy and slid down towards the end of the raft.

  ‘Help me Ali!’ she called out as she thudded against the side and grabbed for one of the straps. She looked around to check that he was alright until the last remnant of her dream was chased away by the memory of his death. The sea was behaving strangely; it was no longer the gentle swell of the last two days which she now barely noticed, neither was it the flat calm of her first day or the white capped spray of the storm. Instead the waves seemed shorter and steeper. It felt like the sea sucked out from under the raft and then thrust it back upwards. She looked around to see from which direction the waves were coming and they seemed to be coming from two directions at right angles to each other. The clouds were a continuous layer of stratus that seemed to be moving with some speed overhead. Just then the wind tore a ragged split in the low cloud and through it she saw a chain of vast thunderheads with black centres split by lightning flashes. She stared up at them until the rip in the clouds passed by.

  The raft lurched and she was thrown off balance even from her seated position. Spray crashed against the side, shot upwards and then drenched her as it fell. ‘Shit,’ she mumbled. A cold gust of wind lifted the loose edge of the canopy and she flung herself across and grabbed the flapping sheet before it could be carried away. Where were her bottles? By some good fortune still wedged in the corner. Where were her clothes? There, the soggy mass floating on the floor. She struggled into them. A sharp gust nearly pulled the sweater from her grasp as she lifted it over her head but eventually she was clammily dressed. She gathered one water bottle and the other raft equipment and then tucked them inside the canopy which she rolled up as tightly as she could and then secured to the raft with the straps. Then she tied herself on and clutched the other bottle tight just as the raft began to climb the side of a wave. She looked up to see the crest begin to roll towards her but the raft crashed through it before it broke. She wondered what would happen if the raft was tossed upside down. Maybe there would be some air trapped underneath and she would hang down from the straps until she got a chance to climb back on top. Most likely she would drown. Oh well, who would miss her? ‘Nobody really,’ she muttered.

  The raft began to climb the next wave and she felt her stomach heave, despite being empty. She felt a sudden looseness in her bowels; she gave way to it and briefly felt a new liquid warmth soaking the seat of her trousers. ‘Mostly water; should wash out with some bio powder,’ she mumbled. There was a sudden cold gust of wind that pulled her hair across her face. She swept it aside, looked up and saw the sky had turned black overhead. There was a blinding flash followed almost instantly by a huge crash of thunder and moments later she was pounded by heavy rain. The raft began its ascent up the next wave.

  For hour after hour she lay there, alternately clutching a water bottle and a strap with each hand and trying to ignore the pain as her palms were rubbed raw. Quite suddenly it seemed to her fatigued mind that the wind had eased and the sky cleared to the west where the sun now hung quite low in the sky. The sea still tossed the raft around but she presumed it would take some time after the storm front passed by before the sea settled. She uncapped the bottle she had been clutching for hours and had a good drink of water. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well Ali, apparently we’re no worse off than we were before,’ she announced. She gazed around the horizon but there was nothing to be seen in any direction apart from the waves.

  ‘I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a what the fuck is that?’

  A pale, sunlit orange triangle appeared briefly above the waves, disappeared, and then re-appeared.

  Part Three: Found

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The bright sun softened as it sunk towards the western horizon. It was surrounded by a dull red sky that contrasted with the deep blue of the sea and the dark clouds overhead. Steven Morris stared at the scene and then inspected the weather maps of the north Atlantic that he had just downloaded from passageweather.com. He glanced quickly but thoroughly around his sixteen metre yacht for any signs of storm damage, stuffed the map into the front pocket of his jacket and then hauled the mainsail back up to its full height. He waited for the yacht to heel as the sail took the wind and thought about setting the jib. The craft crested a wave and then pitched down into the next trough, the sea broke heavily against the fore peak sending a drenching mass of spray crashing down on top of the bows. Perhaps he should wait until the morning when the sea should have moderated. He ducked back down into the cockpit, checked that the global positioning satellite signal was good and adjusted the automatic steering so that his yacht was once more heading towards his destination on the east coast of the United States.

  He was hungry. He pulled off his waterproof clothing and thrust it into the locker. He took one more look at the sky beyond the yacht’s stern. He could see distant flickers of lightning as the storm blew away to the east but according to the latest weather forecast he could anticipate at least four days of good weather before the next front would blow in from the west to offer a fresh challenge to his seamanship.

  Now the sun was so low that he could only see it when the yacht crested the waves, and with each successive peak more of the red disc disappeared until only a flickering red line remained. As he swung down into the cockpit he glimpsed a curious shape in the sea beyond the prow. He grabbed the coaming and jumped up on to the thwart to keep it in view. The object crested a wave and as it caught the light of the setting sun it appeared to be a dull orange colour. It lay long and low in the water for a moment and then slid out of sight down the other side of the wave. He stared out into the darkening sea and as the last of the sun sank below the horizon he saw it rising sluggishly towards the crest of the next wave. He tried to fix its position against the clouds on the horizon and then altered course towards it. It was probably only some piece of flotsam but the picture he retained in his mind’s eye suggested that it might have been large enough to damage his yacht if he was clumsy and collided with it.

  The moon was not due to rise for at least an hour. He took the flashlight from its bracket and shone it hopefully. The object was much too far away to be picked up by its beam. He replaced it and pulled out a single shot flare gun. His body tensed as he pulled the trigger. There was a bang, louder than he expected and the firework trail of the projectile arced up into the sky. He shut his eyes for a moment as the flare burst into life. As the bright light descended on its little parachute it gave him a good sight of his target. He altered course slightly and then stood staring out to sea using the flashlight sparingly to preserve the battery life. After ten minutes he still had not spotted the floating object. He thought about firing off another flare but then he caught a glimpse of it at the top of a wave only about a hundred and fifty metres away off the
starboard bow. He hurriedly altered course towards it and then winched the mainsail down. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered as he held his thumb on the engine auto start button. Ten seconds later he heard and felt the diesel motor rumbling into life in the bowels of the yacht. With one hand he steered the craft whilst playing the flashlight beam over the sea. Suddenly it was right in front of the yacht. He threw the engine into reverse but not in time to prevent the stem grinding against the floating object.

  Steven put the motor into neutral with a curse and gazed out over the side. He was relieved to see a cylindrical fabric tube about a half metre in diameter rather than a rigid object that might have damaged the yacht’s bows. The flashlight revealed a large inflatable raft about ten metres long. It was curiously rectangular and flat at one end; it was not orange, but made from a dull silver fabric that had reflected the dying sunlight. He couldn’t see anyone aboard, but playing his flashlight at the far end he could see a bundled up sheet of heavy duty plastic fabric. What lay beneath it?

  Somewhat reluctantly he unclipped a boat hook from the cabin roof and pulled the life raft hard up against the side of his yacht. There was a webbing strap fastened along the top of the cylindrical side of the raft and using the hook he manoeuvred it awkwardly along the boat until he could use the aft mooring line to tow it astern. He checked his battery condition indicators and then switched off the diesel motor. He examined the raft as best he could while leaning over the stern and playing the flashlight beam over it. Maybe someone was alive in the raft, sheltering under the plastic sheet?

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Anyone aboard?’