Leaking Belly

The belly of the decommissioned Russian aircraft carrier is dusty and full of shells that I assume are not still explosive. If this beast did have munitions, then the owner and party people above on the ship’s flight deck might tread with more respect on this novelty from the Cold War. 

A woman and I shrug, assuring each other that the rows of dull metal casings we are suddenly standing amidst are empty. I recognize this woman from other parties, and I saw her run away from a man just now along an upstairs hallway. Together we dove into the shadowed belly of the ship and swung through monkey bars and metal cages before realizing we had landed among long silver tubes, stacked into the darkness. Nothing has recently disturbed this place but the spiders.

It is quiet, except for the hollow ringing of water dripping steadily, far away. We do not hear the rattling of the rave music upstairs, which is good because I’d rather not learn the sound of the metal shell casings around us, rumbling in their cages to the music’s bass. 

She starts giggling into a dimly lit silence that swallows the sound. “This is fun. You seem fun.”

I relax. Perhaps I judged too quickly. Perhaps the man upstairs did not mean her harm. At this point, I’ve experienced enough to be wary. To want to whisk her away. To be the hero for her that I could not always be for my past self.

“Do we risk these bombs, or do we risk the man?” she asks. Her deep brown eyes glitter above dark red lips. Ah, so she’s gone mad, too. 

“The bombs aren’t real.” I smile.

“The man is.” She laughs. To my quiet gasp, she jumps and grips the metal bars overhead, and shows me she was once a gymnast. Up and horizontal goes her body, and she glides across the belly of our dusty beast, her back muscles straining against her lacy party top until she suddenly goes rigid and collapses onto the nearest platform. 

I fling myself onto the monkey bars and run to her.

“It’s okay.” She waves me away as I approach. “I’m exhausted. Where's Mark?”

“Mark?”

“The man in the hallway…”

“But I thought you meant to leave him there.”

We are closer than I realize to the exit, and she pushes herself up and goes to the door. She opens it. Yells his name.

I want to say, “No, stay. We were happy without Mark.” But I swallow my plea down into my belly.

She yells for him again and looks to me with apology. “This was fun. Sorry I’ve gotta go. But maybe we shouldn’t play in the bombs, anyway.”

Footsteps in the hallway tell us a heavy footed presence is approaching, and the man she was running from opens the door. “Stay safe!” She waves and yells over her shoulder as Mark pulls her away.

They leave me in silence and dust and shell casings. “But the bombs aren’t real.” I curl into myself on the cold concrete platform, stomach sinking. "Stay."

There is a leak somewhere in this aircraft carrier. I count the steady drops of water.

Previous Postcard: https://www.wrizzit.com/post/hunting-games

Photo is mine.

Author's note: Thank you so much for reading my draft! This story is posted under the "fiction" genre so I might edit details for privacy, though I maintain the human connections. This is part of my Postcards series—snapshots of human connection in unexpected moments and places.