Her smile burns and she’s only been awake an hour. Shirley waves at her passengers as she leaves the cafe. The doors slide shut behind her. It vaguely occurs to her that once again, nothing from the previous half-hour is worth remembering. Things happened, and nothing mattered. Now, we’re simply moving on.

Breakfast is over. Now what?

She could go to the boiler room. Check for leaks that are never there or dust that never settles. She could check all the ropes. None of them will be loose. She could sit on the bow, but Yu will be there. Anywhere with a reflection, Yu will be there and that’s another problem. Could Shirley rightfully call what she’s going through a ‘problem’? Is she allowed to have problems here?

It is day 135.

Nothing could be more opulent than the captain's quarters. Vast windows with crisscrossed muntins take up every wall, ruby curtains blocking out the sun. The captain enters and light swarms into the room, quickly retreating into the hallway when Shirley closes the door behind her.

“Hello room,” She smiles tiredly, “I’m back…”

Shirley had gotten dressed for breakfast. A clean double-breasted suit, knee-high boots, and a navy captain’s hat. Zachary had called her dashing. He said that every day and every day Shirley wore the same thing. She moults like a tarantula. Clothes are haphazardly discarded in piles on the rosewood floor. Only her boxers remain. She pulls the puffy white comforter off her bed, wrapping it around her shoulders and shuffling to her desk chair. Huddled in her cocoon, she lays her head down on her desktop. A deep, raspy breath. A hoarse sniffle or two.

Just behind her desk chair is Shirley’s bedroom mirror. It’s long, body-length form is confined under a blanket. It’d been that way for a while, although Shirley can’t quite remember when she covered it. It happened at some point in this endless blur.

“If you wanted it to matter, it would.” That’s what Yu would say. Exactly what Shirley neither wanted nor needed to hear.

Underneath her head, there’s a map etched onto the desktop. A seventeenth-century Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica ac Hydrographica Tabula. It’s inaccurate and stunningly beautiful. Bronze with lush colours painted onto the ornamentation. The two hemispheres are carved into the wood, giving the continents it depicts a natural texture. She had a postcard with this map in her apartment. It’s probably been thrown out by now.

Shirley traces the sea with her fingertip.

“I wonder,” She says to herself, “If I wish for an island, would it first appear on the map and then the skyline? Or would I see it lurking from my window, pretending to be a surprise?”

She presses her pointer finger against the edge of Septentrio in the left hemisphere. She breaks off a piece and drags it to the other hemisphere, plopping it down in the Indian ocean. It doesn’t really look like Australia, but it’ll have to due.

She stares.

“Come on,” Shirley mutters, “Have some imagination…”

She cups all the continents in her hands and squishes them together. The earth reshapes and when she pulls away, she’s left a heart-shaped mound in the space where the two hemispheres meet. It’s a little lopsided.

“Pangea 2.0,” She mumbles, “I guess… I should put the Comet somewhere?”

The captain plucks a Barc out of the carving and the ship changes shape between her fingers. A little Mississippi Comet takes form, and she hesitates. Where to put it? By the border? Or maybe closer to the heart? Should she build a fleet of ships or let it sail the seas alone? She organizes the other ships into an arrow in the incognita. The tiny Comet goes at the tip of the arrow, spaced farther out than the other ships. Maybe it’s in the lead or maybe it’s not part of the group at all. Impossible to tell.

Shirley leans away and rests her cheek against her palm.

“The ocean’s a little bland. But then again, I guess Henricus was more focused on mapping out the land, not the water. Maybe if I…”

She swirls her fingers against the wood that’s meant to represent the sea, and gradually it begins lilting up and down. A current of gentle waves brings the desktop to life.

Her comforter falls part-way down her back when Shirley straightens up, “Not bad. What if I…”

She bumps her fist against Pangea 2.0 and it splits apart. The shards drift. Shirley cycles through a few different shapes. Perfect circles that look more like ovals. Squares, triangles, and diamonds. She scatters them around until the ocean looks like a sea of constellations. She wants to like it. She wants to feel that warm rumble of satisfaction in her chest. But she feels nothing, not even dislike. Just a numb discontent that's starting to itch. It prickles and tickles her skin most uncomfortably, and then the weirdest thing happens. She likes it. Not the haphazard carving before her, Shirley feels nothing for this meaningless thing under her fingers, but this itch… It’s alluring.

The desk, it’s cream and bronze polish, gives Shirley an idea. A dumb idea, but an idea none the less. Her comforter falls away as her legs uncurl out from under her. The floorboards are chilly under her bare feet. As Shirley gathers and molds the pieces into her desired shape, her chair creaks as she pushes it backwards.

“I’m gonna make a giraffe.” Shirley mutters. So she cracks her knuckles and gets to work.

Giraffes are orange, right? And bronze is kind of like a dirty orange, isn’t it? Tammy, her fourth foster parent, had loved giraffes. Giraffes, lions, elephants, and hyenas; Tammy had more paintings and statues of these animals than there probably existed on earth. Shirley was scarcely allowed to look at her foster mother’s statues, let alone touch them. When Shirley moved into her first apartment, barely a day after reaching the age of majority, the first thing she bought was a tiny wooden giraffe. She’d put it on her shabby console table and had always made a point to give it a pet when she walked down the hall.

Moulding the basic shape of the mammal is child’s play. Carving out the finer details is not. How long are a giraffe’s legs compared to its neck? Should all four legs be visible or just two? The bottom half of the giraffe gets globbier and its head smudges into a rotund triangle. Frustrated, Shirley smacks the glob of wood into the left hemisphere and stumbles backwards, knocking the mirror behind her with her shoulder. The mirror rocks back and forth, the blanket over top of it falling away, revealing Shirley’s nearly naked reflection.

“Shirley! It’s so good to see you!”

Yu’s boisterous greeting makes Shirley jump, spinning around mid-air, spine tingling and breast bouncing.

Yu takes in Shirley's state of undress with a blank expression. It coughs, “Oh, uh, am I interrupting…” Yu’s eyes flicker downward, zeroing in on the Captain’s desktop, “… something…?”

“No!” Shirley hastily tugs her comforter up and around her shoulders, “No, I was just, um…”

She follows Yu’s gaze down her the desktop and feels her cheeks go hot. The giraffe's legs are spindly sticks that resemble coarse hairs. Its body is rotund and oddly angled. Its neck is thick and textured in a way that looks almost veiny. The head is shaped like an upside-down heart. It looks like a shiny, bulging penis.

Shirley turns her head away. Her grin is wide and far too toothy.

“Have to pass the time somehow, right?” She laughs, grabbing the mirror and firmly shifting its view away from the desk.

“True, very true,” Yu smiles, “Although, I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to do so, don’t you think? Take a stroll to the boiler room or maybe check the ropes? Oh, you could have afternoon tea with Horace and Eliza! You know, Anne is baking a fresh batch of muffins, wouldn’t you like to go bake with her?”

Shirley forces a shallow chuckle out of her mouth, “What great ideas! But, you know how I love my private time. Besides, I’m sure the passengers won’t be missing me much!”

“Oh, that’s not true! Your passengers love their Captain!”

How tempting it is, the idea of simply throwing the blanket back over the mirror. If only to end this dreary discussion. Instead, Shirley shuffles over to her bed. She lies down. The cushions are very comfortable, almost too soft. Yu remains in the mirror; a perfect reflection.

Shirley remarks, “Yeah, they sure do love their captain. They do their job well, don’t they?”

Yu’s smile falters, “What does that mean?”

Shirley stares up at the ceiling and says, “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“You don’t like your passengers?”

“I never said that.”

“It was implied.

“Was it?”

The rocking of the boat makes the ceiling sway in Shirley’s vision. There’s a pattern up there she’d been dying to figure out these past few days. Sometimes, in the corner of her eye, Shirley thinks she sees where the pattern begins. Or maybe that’s where it ends. Try as she might, she just can’t get a lock on it. The pattern never stills. The order is always changing.

“Is that the one thing that matters?” She marvels, “Whether or not I ‘like’ them?”

“No, of course not--”

“Aren’t I a hypocrite? I’ve never wanted to believe in any so-called god. A horrible god makes a horrible world, and a horrible world has horrible people. And now, well, just look at me! Just look at me now.” Shirley turns around, lying on her stomach with her head between her arms, “An empty person surrounded by empty people. Just a bunch of reflections. If there was a god, I wonder if that’s what went wrong? Maybe humanity wasn’t as human as he imagined we’d be. Impossible to relate to. Too similar to care. Goodness, that sounds pretentious as hell.”

Shirley pauses. She waits for Yu to speak, but they say nothing. She sighs. If there’s one thing Shirley hates doing, it's complaining. It’s such an unlikable trait. This numbness isn’t Yu’s fault, and Shirley knows it's cruel to make Yu feel like it is.

“Thank you for trying. I’m sure you put a lot of work into all of this and I really do appreciate it. Honestly, it’s one of the nicest gifts anyone’s ever given me. But it isn’t real. You know it, I know it; if my passengers were real people, they’d know it too. But they’re not real. I want to talk to real people, Yu. But I guess you’ll have to do.”

Silence.

“Yu?” Shirley sits up. The mirror by her desk is empty, her reflection is no longer trapped within its confines. She’s alone, which is exactly what she had wanted. But, unfortunately, wants are fickle things. Quick to leave oneself deserted.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

~*~

Shirley doesn’t cover the mirror again, but it hardly makes any difference. No matter how many reflections Shirley passes, Yu doesn’t appear again. A sense of foreboding emerges. The captain spends most of the next ten days looking over her shoulder. In hindsight, she should have been more worried about what was standing right in front of her.

“Good morning, Captain!”

“Oh!” Shirley staggers backward, bumping her head against the cafe door, “David!”

Breakfast had just ended, and as usual, Shirley was the first one to leave. Or, at least, she thought she was. She pushes the door open just enough to peer inside. David’s chair is empty. But David had been sitting in his usual spot, hadn’t he? Shirley could have sworn she passed him on the way out.

“How did you…? Weren’t you just inside…?”

“I was just going for a walk,” David smiles, “I’d love it if you joined me!”

A second of staring and then Shirley smiles.

“Lead the way!”

It’s an aimless stroll. The captain walks slowly, making sure she stays one step behind her passenger at all times. The walk was David’s idea; Shirley only wanted to make it easy for him to take the lead. It becomes very clear, very quickly, that David is a follower, not a leader. They’ve passed the cafe fourteen times. It’s only been fifteen minutes. Conversation doesn’t ripen. They talk about the weather because what else is there to chat about?

“It looked like it was going to rain this morning,” David says.

“Yes,” Shirley answers, “But it didn’t.”

They send each other a lopsided smile and pass the cafe for the fifteenth time.

“Well, it was great talking with you David!” Shirley smiles, “But I’d hate to take up too much of your time.”

She starts walking to her quarters, and David follows close behind.

“I don’t mind.”

“Yes, but I’m sure you have somewhere to be!”

She quickly turns a corner, but David doesn’t take the hint.

“Not really.”

“That’s too bad, but I’m really not feeling my best.”

She speed-walks up the stairs and David matches her pace with ease.

“Oh no! Why don’t I get you some medicine?”

“No!” Shirley grits her teeth but her smile stays in place, “No, thank you David. I’m just tired, that's all.”

“I’ll walk you to your room. Jane will bring you some milk to help you sleep.”

It’s an odd thing to offer, given the fact that they’ve already reached her door.

“That’s so sweet of you to offer,” The captain turns her door handle and does her best to slip through without opening the door too wide. She says, “But all I need is a nap!”

Shirley goes to pull her door shut, but David catches it with a surprisingly firm grip. He’s stronger than he looks. The muscles in his hand bulge, but David’s expression remains sweet and sincere.

“Okay, I’ll leave you be.” David says, “I… I just wanted to thank you. For running the ship! I’m sure it's a lot of work and we all really appreciate it!”

Is it possible to cringe with a smile? Apparently, it is.

“Oh, trust me.” Shirley chuckles, “It’s no work at all doing what I do. No work at all.”

“I do trust you!” David’s grin is like a sunbeam shining directly into the captain’s eyes.

Shirley feels like she’s been cornered by an emotional drunk who’s had a little too much vodka. She stays calm. She’s good at staying calm. David leans in and keeps talking, “We all trust you! You’re a good person and we’re all so lucky to have you here with us! Don’t you agree?”

A lump forms in the back of Shirley’s voice. The captain flounders, mouthing words that her tongue won’t bring to life. She pulls on the door. Tugging and tugging in quick bursts, hoping that David doesn’t notice her distress. Why won’t he let go of the door? That’s all she wants at this moment. Let go of the door, the captain whimpers in her mind. Let go of my door; let go, for god’s sake, let go!

David’s fingers slip away. The door slams shut so fiercely that Shirley trips on her heels and lands flat on her back. She hears David chuckle from the other side of the door.

“Have a nice nap! See you tomorrow!”

~*~

Shirley skips breakfast the next morning, and it seems she’s not the only one. Belle visits her quarters and spends the better part of six hours cleaning. She somehow finds over a thousand ways to ask the same questions. How’s your day been? Any plans today? So what have you been up to? Anything new in your life? Up to anything? How have you been feeling? How are you doing? It’s torture. The day after that, Shirley flees her room before daybreak, but it’s still too late. May tracks her down by the stern, regardless of Shirley’s attempts at hiding under the stairs. Another brigade of questions. There’s something off about how the passengers are talking to her now. They’re too nosy, too open, and too intrusive. By the third day, Shirley’s sanity is on its last thread.

“Good morning, Captain!”

That sickening twist of regret in Shirley’s stomach is awfully familiar. She shouldn’t have left the captain’s quarters. Why did she leave her room; her only sanctuary where she might be miserable in peace? She'd thought no one would think to look for her in the boiler room.

Shirley turns away from the steam engine, greeting her passenger happily.

“Molly!” She says, “What are you doing here, sweetie?”

The chubby-cheeked little girl rocks up and down her heels in the most adorable way. Shirley regards her like a fragile vase tipping to and forth on the edge of a table. A source of unending anxiety.

Molly smiles, “You weren’t at breakfast.”

Shirley goes tense.

“Yes, I wasn’t hungry--”

“Are you sick?”

“No!” She almost scowls but manages to catch herself, “No, sweetie. Where are your parents? I’m sure they're wondering where you are.”

Did Molly have parents? Shirley can’t remember. Molly had Buddy; was he her brother? Or just a friend? Horace and Eliza are married, maybe they’re Molly’s parents. Then again, they seem a little old to have a child so young. The boiler makes a crackling squeak and the captain glances over her shoulder at it for only a second. In that split second, Shirley is faintly aware of a sudden gust of hot hair on her neck. She turns back to Molly. Four eager smiles greet her, each less than an inch away from her face.

“Oh god!” Shirley shrieks, goosebumps prickle her skin in a way that makes her clothes tickle.

“Good morning, Captain!” Says Eliza.

“Good morning, Captain!” Says Horace.

“Good morning, Captain!” Says Buddy.

“Here are my parents!” Says Molly.

The captain laughs breathlessly, heart beating like a drum solo, “There are your parents…”

“And my brother!”

“And your brother…”

“We hope we aren’t taking up too much of your time, dearie!” Eliza smiles, “We were wondering if you needed anything?”

“No. I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” Horace presses.

“Yes.”

“We’d do anything for you, you know. Just say the word.”

“I know,” Shirley shuffles to the side, back pressed against the wall as she tries to get to the door whilst staying as far away from the smiling family as possible, “Trust me, I know.”

Eliza opens her mouth to speak, “Oh, you look a little queasy, dearie. Are you sick--” but Shirley’s already bolted out the door. Why did her boat have to be so big? Have the hallways always been so long? Has there always been this many corners where people could lurk just outside of her line of sight, waiting to pop out and ensnare her with their smiles? ‘Good morning, Captain! Good morning, Captain! Good morning, Captain!’ Her mind taunts her with those three words, just clear enough for paranoia to creep up her back. Are the words only in her head? Or are they whispers, just quiet enough to drive her mad with uncertainty?

“Good morning, Captain!”

Shirley screams. A pitchy, out of tune D6.

Behind her, Shirley hears the voice murmur almost fearfully, “Captain Villeneuve? Are you okay?”

The captain spins around, proudly displaying her widest smile on her cherry-red face. The baristas Jane, Zachary, and Anne smile back at her. Footsteps from up and down the hall get closer and closer. Oh god, more of them are closing in.

“I’m just screaming for joy! Yelling for the yuks! Shipshape and Bristol fashion! Happy day, callooh callay!” Shirley slaps her knee, doubling over in wheezy, five-packs-a-day laughter. Then she goes straight as an arrow and smiles, “Now turn those frowns upside down! It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile!”

The captain clasps her hands behind her back, scooching away inch by inch, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade! Laughter is the best medicine! Live, Laugh, Love!”

Maintaining eye contact, the captain swings her door open. She gives her baristas a happy salute, “You only live once but I’m already dead!”

And with that final remark, Shirley throws herself into the captain’s quarters like a live grenade. She slams the door shut, locks it, and sticks a chair under the handle.

Shirley’s breath comes in gasps, “Fuck…”

There’s a knock on the door. Then another, and another, and another. A groan that’s angry like a growl escapes Shirley’s throat and she turns away, refusing to answer. Instead, she marches up to the mirror and launches into a rant.

“If this is a joke, no one is laughing! Do you hear me?” She scowls, “Answer me, Yu! You never had the sense to leave when you weren’t wanted before, and now you’re ignoring me when I actually want to talk to you? Well, I’m sorry, okay! I’m sorry…”

She’s on her knees now. When that happened, Shirley has no idea. She doesn’t cry. She feels like she should be, she certainly has enough misery bottled up inside her but the tears just don’t come.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry…”

Her reflection in the mirror remains nothing but a reflection. Misery wanes into numbness. The knock, knock, knocking doesn’t cease until well after midnight. In all that time, she still hasn’t moved from her spot crouched by the mirror, head pressed against the glass.

It is day 145. The captain raises her head.

“Fine,” Shirley croaks, “If you won’t give me your company, then I don’t owe you mine.”

The captain removes her coat, shirt, and trousers. She throws her hat to the floor and shucks off her boots. It’s going to be warm tonight. Even if it wasn’t, Shirley wants nothing to do with these harlequin clothes and if that means she’s going out naked, then so be it. She contemplates taking a blanket with her, but decides against it. Even a measly blanket would be too much of a reminder. Shirley takes nothing. She wears nothing. She escapes through the window.

The captain of the Mississippi Comet tiptoes between the stacks and slides down the mast until her bare feet touch the bow. The grain is rough and splintery. Shirley strolls down the bow and as her eyes get a glimpse of where the water kisses the hull, the captain hears a stampede of harried footsteps converging on her from behind. A cool sense of relief falls over her. Not relief that she’s no longer alone, but only solace at the fact that nothing can stop her now.

“Captain!” One voice becomes many, but Shirley doesn’t freeze. Her heart beats steadily, and her pace doesn’t slow. The voices keep calling and the footsteps get closer, “Captain! Captain! Captain! Captain! Captain!”

Over the bow’s edge, Shirley can see her reflection in the water. It has her expression and its movements match hers perfectly. She raises her foot, levelling it over the water. Hands with clawing fingernails reach out and catch the captain by the skin of their teeth. It’s not enough. With no clothes to grab hold of, they can't get a grip. They scratch at her back, leaving grabby scrawls that come frightening close to getting a firm grasp on her skin.

“Captain, wait! Please, just wait!”

But her passengers are too late. Shirley tips forward, falling from the bow like a heavy anchor without its chain.

“Please don’t leave! Please, please don’t leave us!”

Legs straight and feet flat, the water comes nearer and nearer.

“What are we going to do without you? Come back here, right now!”

But when her Shirley’s feet collide with the deep blue sea...

“Why are you doing this? What did we do wrong?”

Shirley doesn’t sink.

“We’re sorry! Whatever we did, we’re sorry! We’re sorry!”

The surface beneath her is sturdy. With a wobble to gain her bearings, Shirley is surprised. Not only can she stand on the water, oh no, she also can walk.

“Please…! Please… Don’t…”

And walk Shirley does. Under the stars, the water is shiny. Her reflection is stubby-looking, all scrunched up under her feet.

“You don’t feel any guilt?” Shirley startles when Yu’s voice resonates from under the gentle waves.

Shirley smiles in a hazy, tired way, “Hello, Yu. Lovely of you to join me.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

The calls of her passengers become screams. It’s not a pleasant sound. She keeps walking. Never turning back and bathed in a pang of guilt that Shirley doesn’t allow herself to drown in. The entire world was made for her; she’s walking on water for god’s sake. She is the only real thing in the universe. Isn’t that pathetic? The only thing that could be more pitful is trying to convince anyone otherwise.

“None of that was real.” Shirley narrows her eyes, sights focused on the horizon where the sun will hopefully soon appear. She smiles, “Please, don’t act like you care.”

Her ties to this afterlife are firmly snipped when Captain Shirley May Villeneuve finally abandons ship.