Waiting on Oceans- flash fiction

I could hear its growling from outside the door. The hairs on my neck stood up the moment the elevator announced the creature’s arrival.

Lazy thing didn’t even take the stairs.

I barricaded the door with a desk chair, the ironing board, my suitcase, pool noodles, an untouched bathrobe, and some sandy snorkeling kits. I sacrificed the two towel swans from the bed and shoved them in the cracks of my makeshift wall to block out sound. The less it heard the more chance I had of smashing its face in with the iron I cradled in my arms. I picked up a complimentary chocolate and freed from its tin foil home, popped it in my mouth, and waited.

There was a jiggle at the doorknob. I didn’t know monsters like that could work knobs. From my experience they only knew how to destroy. I mulled over my chances of escaping out the porthole, but I was on the tennis squad in my youth, not swim team, so I took my chances with the iron.

The monster’s attempts with the doorknob died as it decided beating on the entrance might be more effective. I didn’t flinch until it hurled its whole body against it, disturbing my complimentary shampoo and conditioner bottles in the bathroom.

I sighed loudly. My soap is definitely on the ground now.

That really pissed me off. I shaved last night. Nothing is nastier than a bar of soap covered in dried-dill-looking crap. What else was on that tub floor? Other people must have peed in that shower. How many specks of foreign urine now dotted my escape from dirt that surrounded me?

The growling became more intense. Speaking of dirt.

“Sweetheart”

It didn’t hold the same fascination it had when I was 18, the time I snuck into the Peachtree Pub with my teammates. Our hair big with dreams and chemicals. Back then I was too young and too distracted by the dimples in his cheeks to realize anyone who calls you sweetheart without first knowing you is garbage. But it grew on me like mold each year, his tone smoothing over from frisky cowboy to adoring husband and father.

“Oh it speaks” I play back lifting both brows and swaying my head back a touch, “I thought it only knew how to hold a bottle and other women.” If beige could speak that’s how bland my words were.

It was doing more than just holding, but my lips didn’t care to form what my mind wouldn’t stop replaying. But attempts to communicate to the drunken monster outside my door was as effective as my homemade soundproofing system. It used its body to again pound on the door, less forceful this time, but enough to send something else spiraling down into the pit of the shower. It was the shampoo bottle, I noticed its absence as I peaked in the bathroom. Crap, I forgot to screw the lid back on. Now it was likely racing to the drain on the keratin laced bathtub floor.  

The funny thing about a monster is it doesn’t always start as one. The ass-pinching boy I thought I tamed all those years ago had resurfaced in the dark places of this cruise liner, as if the ship’s bar lighting summoned the southern demon out of him. But I always knew the monster was there, always waited for it to come out, always patiently waited.

The thumps on the door subsided, replaced by slow and even breathing.

I laughed and put the iron on the bed and retreated to the ground, lifting my legs up so I could see how smooth and veiny they were. My back flinched by the little support offered by the puke blue carpet. I ignored the pain, like everything else. I’d deal with the mess in the bathroom later, call a stewardess or something to get fresh towels, and after that, maybe show off these dolphin legs and go for a late swim. They also had a David Bowie tribute concert tonight on Deck C, and a special showing of The Goonies in The Aqua Theater. So many options.  On my way there, perhaps I would use the iron to wake my drunk of a husband. Causally letting it slip through my fingers onto his head. I smiled. Right now, I was going to lie as still as possible, letting the lull of the ship’s engine carry me into blissful oblivion.

I’d wait. I was good at that.