Остров Харона. The Island of Charon. Премия им. А. де Сент-Экзюпери / A. de Saint-Exupery Award (Билингва: Rus / Eng)

Главное, чтобы потом ничего не забыть, начать всё вовремя записывать!»

Я зажгла свечу, благо в ящике стола их находилось предостаточно, достала блокнот и начала так:

«…Вода, вода, кругом – вода, и панический ужас охватывает меня – я пытаюсь всплыть на поверхность, но почему-то не могу и… задыхаюсь…»

2.3. A Giant Ship

I couldn’t fall asleep at night. I left my hut to enjoy the Ocean view from the cliff, directly from the point where the stairs, connecting the hotel with the beach, began.

I stopped at the very edge.

Black starry Sky, in every sense the Pacific Ocean and me…

However, literally in a couple of seconds, I felt a strange, already forgotten there, on the Island, breathing of… the Wind! Yes! Who could imagine, the Wind…

And the Sky instantly changed! The clouds started running across it and so quickly, as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button of a movie. I heard a powerful thunderclap, and the Sky was cut by lightning blades.

I was about to run back to the hut when I suddenly noticed… a Giant Ship! It looked absolutely surreal! It seemed to be brought there by the Wind and quite by accident, from some other era, or even from… another world!

It was raining, but I couldn’t move, gazing at the Ship… It was really gigantic! And so strange, old, with shabby sails, but without any flag or identification marks…

Finally, the Ship entered the bay…

…Oh, no! It was impossible! Passengers began to descend from the Ship straight into the Ocean! How many people were there on board? A hundred? A thousand? But all of them seemed to be ghostly transparent.

I hardly forced myself to ran back «home». I locked the door.

Oh, I was sure, if my phone had not been dead for the lack of electricity, and the Internet had been available, the Giant Ship would have made a splash on the network! I wondered if ghostly people would have shown up in the pictures.

«I’ll be back home in a week, and I’ll have to report to the „community“ about my journey. Not to forget anything, one needs to start writing everything down in time!»

I lit a candle, since there were plenty of them in the table drawer, took out my notebook and began like this…

«…Water, water, all around is water, and a panic horror seizes me.