ferry rock and roll

11/02/17

Just the day before yesterday, I was reading a book called Complications. T. gave it to me before I left. It is written by a surgical resident about different quirks in the medical world. I had just finished the chapter on nausea. So I had a theoretical understanding of the mechanism before embarking on the ferry. This in no way prepared me for the physical reality of it.

I am normally not prone to sea sickness. I sat outside until it started to rain and then I went inside. Reggae music videos were playing on the TV monitor. I sat on a plastic lawn chair and watched for a while. Behind me, the wooden bunk beds, each with a woman in it. The men were sitting in the chairs drinking and talking. I noticed one young man kept going between the bunk beds and mopping the floor. It hit me that these women were all throwing up. I sat there feeling smug. I am not seasick. The ferry pitched and rolled. The men continued to drink. I got tired of sitting and went to lie down. This was not a good move. Over time, it became a very unpleasant experience. Because of the violent pitching, it was too hard to get up. I turned to one side - a woman vomited into a plastic bag in front of me. I turn to the other side - the same thing. Best to close my eyes. It was a 5 1/2 hour trip. I was happy to disembark.

That night, I got to experience my second queazy moment. In the early evening, I encountered a big (one could say gigantic) cockroach wandering across my floor. I hate to kill cockroaches - they seem so alive and intelligent. But I judiciously closed my suitcase and backpack and put my fruit inside. When I had been asleep for a short while, I was awoken by something crawling on my back. When I turned on the flashlight, there was the cockroach. With a feeling of revulsion, I instinctively flicked him off the bed. Now I was willing to consider killing him. However he had disappeared under the bed somewhere beyond my reach. I fell back asleep and he did not return.