Release but not relaxed

Episode 5

“Third day on board. This night Michal couldn’t get proper rest knowing Katarina here as well. But once he got over discovering she was part of Fabulous Cruise too, he was not so sure to go get find her or not. He had no news since she stood him up at the restaurant that night. If she didn’t feel close enough to share about what happened, what would he say to her?

So Michal spent his morning with his matching ticket in the hand – a small picture of Katarina with the caption “you’ve got a match” written in bold glitter letters. He was going back and forth in his room, and couldn’t decide himself to go and ask about her contact info. Then, avoiding the reception staff all day, both afraid and embarrassed at the same time. Eventually he dropped the ticket in the bottom of his pocket: enough for today. He was supposed to be here for two weeks, sooner or later he would bump into her and take care of this in due time.

Anyway, today was supposed to be quite a day. The staff made a special announcement earlier that they would celebrate the funeral tonight. And it wouldn’t be among the least ones. Tonight would be the funeral of well-known Captain Tiptoe, the US Marine who fought during secession war between North and South Korea, but was better known for his famous – yet unfortunate – saying when he met Mahatma Gandhi: “your underwear smells like my donkey’s poop”.

For the occasion, Fabulous Cruise privatized a whole part of Jersey island. It would be a night celebration, the body carried by a military delegation and all the Fabulous passengers invited to take part to the candle light tribute.

But first Michal had to go through the day. Some equivalent kind of a martial law was settled on board. Michal saw the signs this morning. No one had really seen it coming. To show support and rise awareness after Brexit, Donald Trump election, and the threat of right-handed political parties in many European countries, Fabulous Cruise decided to make an engaged day.

Besides the announcement of some happenings all along the day, the Fabulous crew delivered colourful wristbands to all passengers, only valid for the day, telling them to wait for further instructions. Michal got a red one and soon he was told, as blue wristbands holders, he couldn’t anymore access some areas. All the third to seventh desk were restricted for him and he could only go to toilets of ninth desk.

A board game tournament was settled on the terrace – the Monopoly of inequalities – and recorded live on Fabulous Cruise YouTube channel. While green wristbands couldn’t go to jail, black ones started the game with 500€ less than other participants, red wristbands couldn’t buy streets or hostels every two rounds, and blue ones got dices with only one to three. Michal watched the unfair game for some time but soon was called again.

All journalists and teachers among all colours were selected to cook for the crew. They had to make rice bagel with horseradish sauce as well as a big piñata shaped as a unicorn for the next day. Despite all the efforts they put in, Michal couldn’t stop thinking it looked more like a dead one. Next to him, the stereotype of the milf was touching it blind-folded in order to find if you could guess which animal it was. In vain.

And finally, at night, the procession for the funeral started. Every passenger was now allowed to grab their paper lantern. Michal saw the face of Katarina in the light of hers. He took place behind her in the line.”

In this episode, I had to make my way with even crazier suggestions than usual which were: “your underwear smells like my donkey’s poop”, rice bagel, Mahatma Gandhi, horseradish, dead unicorn, Donald Trump, French elections referendum, Immigration, Martial law, execution, milf, Brexit, North Korea.

Again, I adapted some of them to let the inspiration flow and favour the atmosphere. Hope you liked it and don’t forget to share your new suggestions for the next episode!