Heroine Addiction
Part One
2. The Atlantia
3. Awakenings
A Genesis of Sorts
We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
— W. H. Auden
She was back in the cot again, that she knew. And he was still with her, but she did not want to face him. About all she wanted to do at the moment was curl inward on herself, turn the world out, and shed tears. Rational thought could come later. Rational thought and the future could hook and impose its tarred claws after she had wept for the certain state of things. It did not matter where she was at the moment - she was practical enough to know that this was not the park, it felt nothing like a dream, and this was nothing like home.
He heard him sigh, and raise himself. His footsteps were quieter the farther from her they were.
Softly, the door was opened, and then shut. It was a small concession that the Captain had left, and she was glad of it.
Only then did Margo let go, and cry. She pounded the pillow, blubbered, and muffled her outbursts. She was furious, hopeless, lost.
When there were no more tears to shed, no more comfort in darkness, Margo sat up in the bed. She wiped away the wetness on her face, and she attempted to find her feet again. For she knew a good too many things that this place was not, now she wanted to find out what this place was.
There was clothing laid out at the end of the cot. A cobalt blue dress was spread out, the material delicate to the touch; the front of the bodice was almost entirely made of lace. Next to the dress was what looked to be a whalebone corset, and a pair of some kind of knee-highs, thick like socks.
Did he expect her to wear those things? They were positively medieval. And why did everything seem so ridiculous? Well, she was sure she not going to go out in what she was wearing; the thin shift was hardly covering her at all. Where were her real clothes? Had the man really put them out to dry, had he really kept them?
Everything in her immediate perception had convinced her that she really had been transported to a different time. The dress, even the way the man talked convinced her of that. Everything that she had learned, experienced, gathered, everything religion, science, and math explained dictated with fervor that time-travel was impossible.
There had been many authors from Mark Twain, H.G Wells, to Audrey Niffenegger who had flirted with their own machinations of how time travel could work, would work - along with all the causes and effects. A young Hank Morgan is transported back to King Arthur’s court, The Time Traveler builds his Time Machine and meets the Eloi, Henry DeTamble deals with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably travel through time. But those were just lyrical fascinations, not reality. Margo had been bred to believe in the rational, and that time-travel and with it fantasy was just a really, really good story.
Yet, here she was.
How was she supposed to rationalize this? There was still a little hope in her brain that she had somehow been immersed in a reenactment, and that the Captain was a part of this - and merely humoring her.
Maybe this was someone’s idea of a practical joke?
Well, on one hand she could get dressed in those archaic clothes and free herself from this room to find out the truth of her situation and surroundings. Or she could remain a bed and contemplative - a worry with the idea of fantasy and dreams.
What if it was that her perception was defective? What if she had really gone crazy?
There was only one way to find out. She had to find her feet again.
Margo tried her best to keep her feet as the ship rolled with the waves. She steered clear of the wet deck, where salt water spurted from the crack near the desk. She attempted to fit the corset around her five times before she got it properly. It pinched when she tied up the laces, her fingers feeling too large as she tied the laces off. She let out an oomph when at last she did tie it securely; the corset pushing and pinching her. As she pulled the dress over her head, she though of those plays she had done in school - especially the costume dramas she had done. All those times getting into costume, putting on her make-up. She fashioned this as that sort of time, and she was in some sort of play; a play where she was a lost lady in a brand new world to see. Like the ship was some sort of Secret Garden.
She found what looked like slippers. After she dressed, she even put those woolen knee socks on, she slipped into them.
She found it hard to breathe as she tried to walk, the corset pinched, and it was almost impossible to take in a full breath.
No wonder women were incompetent, it was their clothes.
She just had to get to the door without falling face first, tripping over the hem of the dress.
