A mermaid, ghosts and a dream of whales

The night before the ninth, the last hour of our watch, we sat on half deck. It wasn’t very dark outside, thanks to the almost full moon, but still it was dark enough to get scared when people started telling stories of ghosts and other supernatural beings.

It all started with Linn returning from the lookout post, convinced she had seen a mermaid. Then she started telling us about moments in her life when things had happened that were so odd ghosts were the only explanation. For once I listened, tired of my fear of these kinds of stories, but after a while it started to become too much for me. Luckily the watch was soon over by then.

It did not end down in our room, the Demon Room, though. Because Linn started to stare at me as if she’d had a real demon living inside of her, and I know that if she’d do it now it wouldn’tt have scared me in the same way, but in that moment it really frightened me and I had to run and hide in the bathroom and continue with brushing my teeth in there.

The thing is: I don’t believe in ghosts. Still, my whole life, I’ve been extremely afraid of horror stories. But it’s my conviction that ghosts don’tt exist that makes me able to joke about things such as us having demons in our room. I can say that lately I’ve gotten less and less sceptical though. Some nights I’ve woken up and seen human shaped shadows in our room, and I’ve started to question my scepticism. What if demons exist? And what if we actually have summoned them to our room?

I woke up the ninth and wasn’t as scared but still wasn’t feeling the best. Of some reason I got up quickly and was on deck unusually early. The first hour of the watch we did nothing, but after we’d had fika there was actually, for once, some important stuff that needed to be done. It was fun to finally do some hard work again. But because we had to do things rather quickly, there were some harsh commands being made, and I in my not best state ever was extra sensitive to them this night. So when everything was done, and all of us, sweaty and with aching hands, started flaking (rolling the end of ropes and hanging them up neatly), I felt sad and went to sit on the opposite side of half deck to were the others were. I sat there looking at the waves for a while.

I’ve been so happy here at Gunilla. I feel safe, I feel lucky, I feel free. So the few days when I don’t t feel very happy, like the early morning of the ninth, it’s almost like I get disappointed in myself or something. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. But I’m so happy to be here and so happy to be a part of this group of people. When I was sitting at the starboard side of halfdeck, the Midships watch started coming up on deck, and Mira walked to me, gave me a hug, and we talked for a while which made me feel better. Before going off watch we all sang for our dear Alicia, because it was her birthday. Then I went to sleep and dreamt about whales.

From lunch and on, the day only got better, and I have all my friends to thank for it.

Sigrid Rocksén Revelj