Aquifer 0 - Onset Read online

hours his hands are full of wrinkles like the hands of an elderly man. The salt water makes his hands week. But not now. This week he is on leave. Time to visit his homeland and stroll around the market on the Museumplein. A beautiful plaza in between the Rijksmuseum, you know, the museum of Rembrandt's ‘Night Watch’, and the Van Gogh Museum, you know, the guy who cut off his ear. No; bad example. You’d rather think of the beautiful sunflowers that he painted.

  The stalls are filled with antiques, or what is called antiques, and design stuff. Most of it is actually used clutter; very classy advertised as ‘vintage’; a name undoubtedly raising the prices. But it remains junk.

  “Hey, there’s something you don’t see very often these days,” Jerry thinks when he sees the pile of paper books. “Today everything is published as e-books.”

  He carefully looks through some of the books. Just as carefully he puts them back in the booth. As he wants to walk by, he discovers a small thumbed book. It looks like an ancient script. Normally he would never look at it; but this book has a cover with fish on it. When he scrolls through the pages he sees what it really is. An old diary, written entirely by hand.

  “Nice little book, eh?” says the young woman behind the stall. “A unique copy, sir. Really something for you. Or for your girlfriend... if you have a girlfriend that is.”

  “Yeah, you think so?” chuckles Jerry. As if the woman he has never seen before knows what Jerry likes at first glance. Or would she have other intentions?

  In addition to the handwritten texts there are some original drawings. Illustrations of all kinds of fish and... Hmm, some weird thing. Volatile he reads the text under the drawings. The young woman’s texts make him laugh. He knows most of the fish that she describes with her humor and her accuracy. How often has he been diving in the Great Barrier Reef? He scrolls back to the page with the strange fish. Or, what is it? What a beautiful drawing. It looks like... Ah, he must laugh about himself; it looks like a mermaid.

  “How much is this?” he asks the sultry looking lady behind the stall, who is still almost unabashedly languishing, waiting for Jerry’s answer. Does he have a girlfriend or not?

  “For you? Or your girlfriend, dear?” the woman says with a cheerful Amsterdam accent.

  Jerry laughs kindly at her. “For me. You don’t have to wrap it up.”

  “Well, I would like to wrap you up,” she laughs.

  Pleased with his new acquisition, he leaves the woman behind her stall. “Well,” she says to her neighbor, “that was my shortest affair ever...”

  In the evening, comfortably laying on the couch, Jerry enjoys reading the diary.

  Saturday, June 23, 1815 

  The water is very calm and there is nothing to be seen on the surface. (This could also be due to the darkness). There is a thick cloud cover and in this light, or no light, I cannot distinguish the sea from the air. I always thought you could admire a beautiful starry sky on the open sea. Not so. 

  I think I will ask Patrick if we can make a stop at a tropical island. 

  Or no, not really. There are no shops on those islands. 

  I finished the outline of the tail that I saw today. I have no idea whether the drawing is truthful. Now that I have another look, the tail may very well be a deformed rock. 

  Or a very small boat. 

  Something is moving. 

  This was a bad idea. It is pitch dark and nobody knows that I have just thrown my husband overboard to take a look in the water with the bloodthirsty sharks. They consider me mad. (If they did not already.) I’ll probably have to call for help.

  Thank goodness. Patrick is still alive. I had obviously not thought that he was the one who moved through the water. In fact, I wonder if he can stand the cold that long. Maybe I should get him out of the water and recognize that I have just suffered from a stroke, as he asserted this afternoon. 

  Now that I think about it, it actually still makes me angry. You know what? Let Patrick continue to look just a little longer. I know what I saw. 

  I think. 

  Or actually… I don’t know what I saw.

  I mean; I know that I’ve seen something.

  Not what. 

  Oh-oh, Patrick calls. It sounds serious.

  “Priscilla, darling, come quickly.” Patrick floats around the gig. Through the darkness I cannot decide if his expression is serious, but considering the relaxed tone of his voice there are no sharks around at this moment (or well, he has not seen them anyway). 

  “What do you mean? Come quickly?” I hiss panicky. 

  “Come into the water,” Patrick calls again. “I think I see something.” 

  “I can’t,” I say prompt. “Then the ink will run out.” 

  Or worse; my notes are torn apart by that white monster. I don’t think so. I’m not going back into the water.

  “Priscilla,” Patrick recalls. “I really think you should see this. I think... I mean, I’m starting to believe... There is indeed something strange going on here.” 

  Unbelievable. It’s 1815 and it still is a taboo for a man to acknowledge, even for once, a woman is right. We should do something about that; us women. We should fight for equal rights like sisters. We should go ‘all the way’ and not only fight for our right, but also for other… um, things. 

  Equality. 

  Or voting rights. 

  That will teach them. 

  But for now I’ll have to settle for the fact that my husband, Mister Always Right, gives me the benefit of the doubt as he finally believes he has seen something I have seen before. 

  “What do you see?” I ask curiously. And convinced of myself I think: “Told you…”

  “A phantom,” says Patrick, not so very sure anymore. The big boss is suddenly not so bossy any longer. “It looks like gold. The shadow looks like gold.”

  “Gold?” My attention is drawn again. Then I realize, “No, no, no. That is not possible. It was green. Or gray. Green Gray. Gray-green.” Ha! If it was gold I would never have left the water I think greedy. 

  “Come and have a look,” sighs Patrick. “And give me some more light.”

  Carefully I bow my oil lamp over the railing. Painfully my eyes manage to find Patrick… and the shadow circling around him ... 

  A shadow that is neither green nor gray. Unfortunately. 

  I quickly grab my notes and try to make a realistic sketch of this... that... the... thing. The being. Whatever it may be. 

  The water largely distorts the shape of the thing, but for now it will do. I go by what I see. And that’s a human torso and a long tail; very different from that shark I encountered. I’m no expert, but I can remember an article about a recently discovered species, with exactly such a tail. A sea cow. 

  No charming name, if you ask me. 

  ‘Priscilla,” it suddenly sounds panicking from the water. “It touches me. Help!” 

  “Oh you’re such a...” When I look over the railing, I see to my horror that Patrick disappears under water. “I’m coming!” I cry startled. I quickly grab a bunch of rope. Holy moly, hard to lift that stuff. I throw some of it overboard. The other end I attach to the mast. I get almost relieved when I hear sneezing. But then I realize that it can also be The Being; the difference is difficult to distinguish because Patrick, as he once again ends up in a coughing fit, sounds the same like a seal. I frantically run back to the railing. “Patrick! Patrick, grab the rope!”

  Phone.

  Jerry looks up startled from the diary. “Darn, why now?”  he thinks. “Jerry,” he says curtly to the caller.

  “Dr. Allen,” says the surly voice on the other end of the line without telling his name. “Nice to know you are making a pleasure trip, but we need your cooperation here. As quickly as possible.”

  “What do you mean Commander?” says Jerry, recognizing the gruff voice of the naval commander out of thousands.


  “Exactly as I say it. You must report here. Tomorrow.”

  “Commander,” sputters Jerry Allen, “I cannot arrange transportation tonight. It will really take me a day or two before I...”

  “Tomorrow morning you will be picked up. Tomorrow afternoon you report to me,” the caller commands seconds before he ends the call.

  “Well, that’s great,” grumbles Jerry. “From one week of vacation to a night of...”

  3

  Relaxed, to the extent possible, Jerry is sitting in the navy aircraft. Slumped in his chair, he reads on in the diary of the flea market.

  Sunday, June 24, 1815 

  A close call. 

  Patrick is still alive, thank goodness. Besides the fact that I don’t want to lose him, of course, I really have no clue how I should justify his sudden disappearance. 

  Not that I know how to explain what I have seen tonight. Patrick used the rope to climb back on deck.  I looked over his shoulder at the almost black sea. And then, suddenly, The Being surfaced. 

  It was a human.

  A woman.

  Honestly! 

  She submerged almost right away, but the image of this creature is engraved so deeply in my mind that I can see her whenever I close my eyes. Her eyes were nearly twice as big as mine and even darker than the darkness of the night. Her nose was flattened ... it looked more like two nostrils without a nose bridge. And her mouth... a mouth. Like mine. 

  Two indefinable flaps were at the height of her ears. It resembled the gills as I had seen on the shark. And in her eyes I saw no anger, only