Gasping for air, I rolled on my side while still in bed struggling to breathe and put my hands on my aching stomach. I vividly remembered tribal people kneeling and standing around staring at me. My stomach ached from cramps, and a thick liquid flowed from between my legs.
“Oh, no. What in the hell happened?”
I touched my crotch to stop the flow of blood. I was warm but dry as a bone. Unconvinced, I reached for the nightstand light and fumbled around to find the switch. The lamp’s light was faint and didn’t illuminate the entire bed. I threw off the comforter convinced I must be swimming in blood. But the bed sheets glowed a pale off-white.
“This can’t be.”
The nightmare was so real. I still felt the hard ground through the thin mat against my back and legs. I’d begged, “Please let me return to the ship. I must get to Hong Kong to get home.”
But they didn’t understand, and I was afraid of dying. I wasn’t worried about the immediate problem, but the aftermath and creating a mystery. No one would know what happened to me just like when my second great-grandfather disappeared during the Civil War.
I drank some bottled water and turned off the light to sleep again. This time I woke with a searing pain encircling my upper left arm. I turned the light back on and looked at my arm. It looked fine, not even pink, but it throbbed. I rubbed my aching bicep and arm.
I tried to remember what happened this time. It was the same tribal group from my first nightmare. My left arm was extended and held down by several women, and I struggled to break free. An old man bent over my arm dabbing it with a splotchy red rag. When he finally stopped, he smiled and let me see his handiwork. He’d made a series of black marks about an inch wide circling my upper arm with blood still seeping out. He must be a tattoo artist, and this is a tribal tattoo.
I shivered but was relieved it wasn’t something worse like an amputation. A tattoo you can deal with if you don’t get a severe infection, and I could get it removed later.
I closed my eyes but heard a loud bang. I sat up dizzy with the hotel room spinning. On the floor, I found an explanation for the noise. I reached down and picked up Axel’s can that had fallen out of bed, relieved his lid was still firmly attached. I kissed Axel’s face in each photograph while tears streamed down my face.
“Oh, Axel, what should I do?”
~ ~ ~
Denmark in November was dark. Only lighting up mid-day if you were lucky. I’d left my stifling hotel room to escape the nightmares and see the city. Despite how safe Denmark was, for protection and company, I took Axel along. One last tour of the city he loved before we headed north to his hometown to meet his brother.
I cut through the ornate train station and exited facing the lights for Tivoli, the amusement park created in the 1800s. Many said Tivoli gave Walt Disney the idea for his theme parks. I pulled Axel’s cashmere scarf tight and wandered up one of Europe’s longest pedestrian walking streets nearby called Strøget. Tightly-packed shops and cafes lined each side, but at this early hour on a Sunday morning, everything was closed.
I wandered down a quaint side street and passed the famous bakery, more of an upscale teahouse from 1890, called Conditori La Glace. Despite being closed, I gazed hungrily at the photos in the window of their fancy layer cakes with unique names.
The bakery was a meeting place for resistance fighters when Denmark was held captive by the Nazi’s during World War II. They ordered a pastry called the radio horn to signal other resistance fighters. I shuddered remembering the memorial park north of town with what looked like the original wooden posts where people were tortured and executed.
I couldn’t imagine facing a firing squad and knowing your death was imminent. Here I am worried about going on an old ship from 1860. Those resistance fighters knew real fear and would gladly exchange places with me.
I sat on a bench and took Axel out of my bag and put his can next to me. “So, Axel here we are. Back on Strøget and how you like it. Quiet and empty.”
I turned Axel in his can above my head, so he had a 360-degree look around. This was Axel’s first real excursion in his current state. Even though no one was around, I felt silly and put him back on the bench.
“What do you think I should do Axel? I know you would just do it. Like the resistance fighters, it would be nothing to you. I need some of that bravery.”
I didn’t feel any braver. The cold metal of the bench penetrated my jeans and long underwear. I had to move to warm up and put him back in my bag. I wandered around purposeless in the picturesque narrow streets.
A Danish bakery appeared with the help of a giveaway clue - the smell of yeasty, freshly baked bread. I bought a Danish roll called a round piece. True to its name, the rolls were perfectly round. I also purchased one of the world’s renown sweet Danish pastries called wienerbrød, which translates to bread from Vienna. Danes were brutally honest and wouldn’t steal the honors for the Austrian recipes even if the whole world gave Denmark credit. But I didn’t care who came up the recipes, they were delicious.
I would have stayed inside the warm bakery, but like most Danish bakeries, it was small and didn’t offer seating. I ambled along nibbling my roll and saving the sweet pastry for dessert. Doubts started to creep in attacking my normally pragmatic self.
Could I give up all modern conveniences for two months, maybe three? Leave everyone and everything I knew and be cut off from the grid?
And would it be as dangerous as Steen predicted? Even if I survived like he said, I didn’t want to end up in pain in some strange place and not have happy memories of the trip. Worries kept crisscrossing my brain like impossibly knotted ropes. As soon as I unraveled one, another grew tighter.
I had scarfed down the roll and starting to devour the sweet pastry while slowly window shopping. The Danish pastry was topped with sliced almonds and filled with ground almonds, known as marzipan. I sat to drink my coffee and glanced at the windows across from me.
The mannequins wore thick cream-colored knitwear with a Scandinavian design and looked so lifelike. I wondered what they would say if I said, “I’m leaving on an old ship without any modern clothes, cosmetics, or electronics for three months.”
I knew what some friends in New York would say. “Only if you can pry them out of my cold, dead hands first.”
I stood next to the store’s window admiring a mannequin’s sleek black pants suit. Something I’d wear but now off limits. I was freezing and turned to leave.
From behind me someone said, “Don’t be a fool. Don’t get trapped into something you won’t like.”
The streets were empty. I didn’t want to hear more and hurried to get away. But I could still hear the mannequin’s voice echoing against the store windows. “You’ll regret it. Mark my words.”
I ran down Strøget for the safety of my hotel. This cruise wasn’t right for me. I was a fool to do this all alone without anyone I knew. And they keep changing all the damn rules and making it harder. I’m not a huge risk taker, not like Axel or Charlie.
I put my cold hands in my pockets to get warm and entered the train station. In my pockets, I felt some loose coins, and pulled out a handful of Danish coins, called kroner or crowns, and studied the odd assortment. The one, five and ten crown coins all had holes punched in the middle. A gold-colored coin worth twenty kroner had the current Queen of Denmark, Margarethe II, on one side, and a large crown with three lions leaping through the air on the other.
The Queen wouldn’t be afraid of a trip like this. She was often at sea on her royal yacht. This must be a sign. “Queens, I go as planned, and Lions, I cancel.”
I kissed the golden coin on both sides for luck and threw it in the air and almost tripped trying to catch it. I flipped the coin from my fist to the top of my left hand and looked down expecting to see the Queen’s profile smiling sideways up at me. But the Lions stared back at me.
“Fair and square, it’s been decided.” I won’t antagonize over the decision. All these warning signs forced my hand, and the brave Queen lost.
Back inside my warm hotel room, I considered my options. It was too early to call Annette on a Sunday morning. But if I wait, I’d lose my courage.
I wrote her a brief cancellation email. The coward’s way out, but I couldn’t tell her a fortune teller, some bad dreams, a talkative mannequin, and a coin toss won by Lions convinced me not to go. My finger hovered over the send button, and I hesitated for what felt like forever. But then I pushed send and painfully let the email go.
I climbed back into bed and tried to get a few more hours of sleep. I relived Friday morning when Charlie ran around my apartment full of energy and charm. I wanted to email or call him so badly it hurt. He would understand these mystical visions and know what I should do. But then I’d be admitting I was desperate, lovesick, and under his control.
“No, I must rely on myself.”
Better to be like a cat. Brave, adventurous, and independent with plenty of my time.