We were on the deck of a huge ship, but it wasn’t in the water. It was up in the air like a blimp but high above the clouds. It was a space ship of sorts; we were nearly that high; but we could somehow breathe just fine without having to wear any kind of special apparatus. In fact I was in my regular clothes. It was like a vacation.
I don’t think I knew anyone, but there had to be hundreds of people scattered about. Some may’ve paid, but I think I won the trip from a sweepstakes or something. In any case, I was happy to be there. I almost never get on boats because I get motion sickness, but this one was stationary and quite still so I felt fine.
I’d been on it for at least a few hours, it seemed, because I’d gotten used to it enough to feel comfortable. It wasn’t a party atmosphere like I imagine a Carnival cruise would be, at least not up there on the top deck, but a serene one. There was no music playing or anything like that; just the peaceful quietness of space.
I say “space”, but it was more like the stratosphere. Not that you could see anything below. When you looked over the guardrail, all you could see is darkness. It was essentially nighttime. The only sights, other than what you could see on the ship, were stars, maybe the moon and what appeared to be a couple of huge scary satellites.
I remember looking at one and turning away. There was another one a lot closer that, for some reason, didn’t scare me as much. “What would be scarier,” I contemplated asking a fellow passenger, “if that satellite hovered directly over us or if this ship started rocking back and forth like…” I don’t think I ever finished the question.
The thought led me to the possibility of the whole ship tipping over à la Titanic, sending us sliding while trying to hold on for dear life. A fall down to the depths would be catastrophic. You’d be lucky to die in the minutes it would take before you splatter into the ground. Perhaps that why I laid down on the floor of the deck.
I wasn’t actually scared. The satellites were scary being as big and close as they were; I don’t like looking at water towers at night for the same reason; but the scary thoughts were mostly for fun. The ship malfunctioning and killing us was so unlikely that I wasn’t really concerned. I was just enjoying my stay.
2026 July 18