TRWD39

My Journal
By Harriman Nelson
39

The scent of lilies assaulted my nostrils, rousing me out of my slumber in the Observation Nose lounger. I hated lilies. Not for their scent, but for the simple fact that they reminded me of all the Nelson family funerals I’d been to.
Of course, Edith might have been down to the nose to check on me. She had no problem with the scent, having been too young to associate the beautiful aromatic flower with death.
But it was late so it had to have been a simple part of a dream I no longer remembered. Then it struck me. Could it have been a premonition? A warning? That Lee was putting himself in the sights of an assassin? That a lily could be part of his funeral?
The Control Room was illuminated for the ‘owl watch’ and I was glad I had been pretty much ignored while the officers and crew attended to business. It was easy to fling off the blanket and climb up the spiral ladder to officer’s country and to Lee’s cabin. Something, gut instinct, told me to wake him and talk him out of taking on the ‘big chair’.
When I reached his cabin, I hesitated, not seeing a light on under the door. I was torn between waking him and waiting until tomorrow morning to speak with him.
He wouldn’t thank me for either, and I already knew what his answer would be, when I heard someone call me.
“Admiral?” the voice called again. Oddly familiar, but no one was in sight. “Admiral?” it asked again. “No, don’t disturb Sparks. Only you can hear me.”
“What’s going on? Is this some kind of practical joke? If it is, it’s not funny.”
“Admiral,” the voice said again, its owner taking on human form. “You know me better than that.”
“J…John?” I croaked as I saw John Phillips, glowing in a kind of sparkling neon glow. John had been Seaview’s first captain, and murdered years ago.
“Oh gawd,” I moaned to myself. “I’m so worried I’m delusional.”
“No,” ‘John’ laughed, “I’m exactly who you think I am.”
“But…”
“Yes, I’m dead. But I’m no ghost come to haunt you. I was sent from above to give you some comfort.”
“I don’t understand,” I answered, running a hand through my mussed up hair. Perhaps I was sleepwalking.
“Do you remember something Jiggs Starke once said sometime after he’d seen Captain Crane, as he was then, in action awhile? That Crane was conceived to command Seaview? Well, that was quite true. But, he was also conceived for this moment in time, for the presidency of the United States.”
My heart sank.
“I know you’re worried about him, and rightly so. There are dark days ahead. Full of tears, turmoil, and tribulation. But it’s Lee who will be the glue to hold the nation and the free world together. Don’t let your desire to protect him make him feel even worse about his decision. He’s agonized by it, but he knows taking on the presidency is the right thing to do. In fact, he’s been anointed from On High for it.”
“Will it…will it be his death?”
“That’s not for me or for you to know.”
“Well, find out! You’re a kind of angel, aren’t you?” “Knowing or not, you can’t change what’s written in Heaven.”
“Then there’s no harm in telling me, damn it! Will Lee be assassinated?”
“I do not know,” John said, his voice and image beginning to fade.
“Come back here!” I yelled. “Tell me, damn it! That’s an order, Captain!”
It was an absurd demand to an angelic being and he seemed amused by it, despite my profanity.
“Tell me!” I whined, “Tell me!” I whimpered, dropping to my knees in supplication.
“Address your plea to God, not to me. Fair Winds and Following Seas, Admiral.”
Then John disappeared.
“Tell me, oh God, tell me,” I wailed.
“Harry?” Lee asked, illuminated in the doorway from his cabin light, which made a kind of halo around his head before he bent down to help me off my feet.
“What’s wrong? Need me to call Sick Bay?”
Did I dare tell him? That Seaview’s former captain, long dead, had appeared to me in an angelic visitation, to validate Lee’s decision? That my heart was breaking in fear that his future might also be his death? Not that John had said it would. But I was even more concerned with Heaven’s silence.
“I think I was sleepwalking,” I lied.
“Since when have you ever sleepwalked?” he asked, his brows furrowed.
“It’s happened before…didn’t want to bother anyone with it. Might have been brought on by a dream I had in the Observation Nose. I can’t remember it now. Only the scent of Lilies.”
“Lilies?” he asked with a grin. “Goes to show you that great minds think alike…I had a dream just now, too. I was surrounded by them. They were oh so beautiful but it was so hard to walk through them all that I kept stumbling. Then I heard you and woke up. Wonder what the flowers meant, if they meant anything.”
“Weird things, dreams. Well, let’s get back to bed son.”
“By the way,” he said, “the Royal Navy will be escorting us all the way around the northern isles until our own fleet will take over for the rest of the trip to Washington. At least we can run submerged once we’re in blue water. Have to admit I’m getting a bit nauseous all this time on the surface.”
We both laughed and Lee retired to his cabin, and I headed to mine and without turning on the light, in order not to wake Emmie, I used the desktop computer to try to find a site about interpreting dreams.
None had any help for my description of Lee’s field of lilies. Except that as in my family, lilies were often associated with death. And what did Lee’s stumbling through them mean? There was no answer for me online.
Perhaps stumbling through meant cheating death? But I still had no clue as to what might happen. As John had said, Lee’s fate was just not for me to know.
I didn’t get a wink.