Young Writers Society

I hate myself. Oh, lord, I hate myself so much I could puke. Oh...I am puking. Great.

Leaning over the railing, I tried to calm my heaving stomach by watching the green, salty waves pass under the ship. I failed miserably, and my unsettled stomach gave up trying to digest my lunch and heaved it up out of my body and over the rail into the Atlantic Ocean.

Luckily there wasn't that much left in me, and I soon finished, heaving my sorry, sore body away from the rail and down into my wheelchair.

"Miss Rasputin, are you all right?" A young man with black hair approached me hurriedly. I grimaced at him.

"Well...I could go off into a very sarcastic soliloquy about the fact that I am possibly crippled for life, wretchedly sick and heartbroken, laden with a desperately guilty conscience after having accidently run over a little boy, almost killed another one at the dock just before this...and the fact that you're asking me if I'm all right. However, I will withhold any comment and merely ask you to please help my frail, injured frame to get settled properly back into this chair."

The man merely laughed.

"I am sorry, Miss Rasputin, that a simple inquiry could stir up such unpleasant memories...but I assure you that I was simply referring to the present moment, in which you looked as if you needed assistance."

He came over and I winced as he gently lifted my injured leg and settled it on the footrest. He reached down and curved his long, strong fingers around my waist, settling me firmly in the correct position on the wheelchair.

"Thank you, Gabriel. I can take it from here," I said with as much dignity as a woman with two shattered legs, a broken nose and a large white bandage around the head could muster. I placed my uninjured hands on the wheels and pushed myself forward, to be rewarded with a cry of pain from Gabriel.

"What is it now?" I snapped, looking over at him. I was not in the mood for sympathy.

"You just rolled over my foot, which wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that my foot was on top of a nail. Please fetch the ship's doctor quickly," Gabriel said. His face was beginning to turn white and his teeth were gritted, but his voice was remarkably calm.

I shook my head and turned, summoning one of the sailors who was passing by. "Excuse me, sir, but my friend here has stepped on a nail and needs help very soon," I said. The sailor looked at Gabriel's foot and then hurried off, himself looking a little white.

"You know, a little 'I'm sorry' might be in order here," Gabriel said tensely, clenching his fists in pain.

"Oh, right. I'm sorry. It's just that I've been saying it so much lately that it's become routine and I don't even think about it any more," I said, trying to force a little real sympathy to my cold, broken heart.

The doctor soon arrived and I watched with calm interest as they slowly pried poor Gabriel's wounded foot from the deck. The nail wasn't rusty, the wound wasn't deep, and Gabriel was patched up and told to be careful for a few days. He nodded thanks and got up, carefully testing the white bandage on his foot.

"I'm going to my cabin, Gabriel. Coming to nursemaid me along, as usual?"

He nodded and limped over to behind my wheelchair. "Mind if I lean on your wheelchair as we go?" he asked, grasping the handles. I shrugged, wincing as the movement triggered pain in my back.

"Do as you please." I reached down, grasping either side of the wheel and wheeled it forward, only to feel something catch it before it got all the way around. I didn't even want to know what it was, but too soon I did. I heard Gabriel cry out and fall with a tremendous crash on the deck. Unfortunately, he landed in a pile of nets and I shook my head as I watched him get helplessly tangled up in them. As I watched him trying to pull himself up, only to get pulled back down again, banging his injured foot here and there, I felt something well up inside of me. A strange sensation, sort of heady, like I'd been drinking too much champagne. I ignored it and waited for Gabriel to find his way to his feet.

But then, just as he was finally able to get up, he flung a net out and it hit a stack of garbage bags piled precariously high on the deck. They were filled with rather smelly kitchen waste, and made a splendidly loud smack on the deck before they split open and spilled their contents all over Gabriel. And that's when the heady feeling came back. Before I realized what was happening, I let out a small giggle. The sight was just too precious. I began to really laugh. I held my aching, throbbing head and I laughed. I looked down at the poor legs that might soon have to be amputated and I laughed. I held my broken nose between my two fingers with the knowledge that when the bandage came off, it would be crooked and mashed-looking...and I laughed.

Gabriel, sputtering in a pile of garbage, looked up at me and a wondering expression came across his face.

"You...you're laughing? Miss Rasputin?"

His voice seemed to call me back from some strange world filled with laughing gas, because I started to calm down.

"Well, I'm glad someone has something to laugh about," he said dryly. "And I'm glad to be the one to make you happy, Miss Rasputin. You look different when you laugh, you know."

"Most people do," I said tartly, still giggling a little. "And I'm sorry, I wasn't laughing at you. It's just that...all of it combined...it's too much. It's laughable. If someone wrote a tragedy of my life, no one would believe it and they would leave the theater howling with laughter that someone could really have a life like mine. I cause myself and everyone I meet so much bad luck..."

I looked up at him and he grinned back down at me. "You know, Gabriel, my brother once told me that I should write a tragedy that was so tragic, it would become a comedy. Have it end with all the characters dead and the people holding their sides with laughter. I think that's what my life is. I'm living a laughably tragic existence, Gabriel."

"Well, you most likely won't be laughing when we get to the coast of California, so get your laughs in now."

His words silenced me, although I still chuckled inside at the irony of my poor, battered life.

"This is true. Well. I'm sorry for that outburst, Gabriel, truly I am, but we'd better leave this mess before someone finds out it was you who left it."

"Don't apologize for the outburst, Miss Rasputin...it was really nice to see you enjoying

yourself."

I frowned, and I felt my face return to it's customary expression. "Don't get used to it," I snapped irritably. Gabriel sighed and stood, shaking his head vigorously as if trying to get rid of cobwebs.

"Off we go, then," he said and we began heading inside for my cabin.

As we went, I watched carefully for any mishap that might occur. I felt one side of my mouth curl up bitterly as I thought, knowing my luck, it'll be a miracle if we both reach the cabin alive. I should have known better than to say that. It was only tempting fate.