pods

We’d lived near the water for some time when the children were struck with the idea to take a boat out of the harbor, and make a day trip of seeing what there was to see. We’d been to the Aquarium many times; in fact one of our sons maintained that going there for his every birthday was the best present ever – since he was two years old.

We looked up some information and found a relatively inexpensive day trip. It was a new kind of trip though. It was a program run by a local University. The Engineering students created not boats, but “pods,” while the Computer Science techs wrote code and programmed them to follow a specific route. The Marine Biology students mapped out that route and recorded information relevant to life, both plant and animal, that was likely to be seen along the way. Then they let the Marketing students do their work.

We arrived at the University’s “Jump Point,” they called it. We took public transportation in through the downtown area, like we always did. We stood in line and presented our online booking voucher, together with our Aquarium membership card for a deeper discount. As we waited for our pod with other groups of excited people on the covered docks, my nose twitched. It was brief, but I told my husband I would be right back. I stepped out of the shelter into the warm late summer sunshine, faced west, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I could still smell it. My eyes popped open and I spun around narrowing my eyes, searching the horizon for the source of the smell that hit me like a brick in the hazy, summer heat. My husband gestured at me from our place in line to hurry back. I smelled thunderstorms. Not just regular ones, the storms that turned the skies green. My eyes searched to the skies for any sign of disturbance found a calm sea, bright blue arching up from the grey and dusty blue that stretched before me. My nose was raised in the Midwest, with the rest of me. I knew that smell. Nine times out of ten, I had the windows latched, all the furniture and toys in the back yard stowed, and the kids in the basement before the weather people here cottoned on to the danger and issued a watch. I knew; I don’t know how, I just did.

We discovered that we would have to be broken up into two smaller groups to more evenly distribute the weight of the six of us. I did not like the idea of being sealed into some kind of pod for hours all by myself – with the boys. Or the girls. The students assured me it was safe, taking our family out of line to show us a board of safety features, obviously created to soothe the fears of raging hydrophobes like myself. Daddy took the girls and I took the boys.

The interior of the pod was small, about six feet in diameter, and smelled of new rubber and salt water. The windows went all the way around except in two places; one about a foot wide which was the obvious anchor point for the sealed glass and the other was the curved submarine-like door which hissed as it sealed itself shut. The seats reminded me of classic diner booths; the boys could easily move about the pod and see in virtually any direction at once. I took note of the first aid kit, packets of small paper bags just the right size for puking into, and a tightly sealed bucket bolted to the floor in the center of the little round room. Upon lifting the lid, it became abundantly clear that the thoroughly scrubbed bucket was for the used paper bags.

We lurched sideways – forward –whatever. Five minutes out from the land, I could see the skies to the south of us were churning black. Something didn’t look right in those skies, although I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I tried to calm my gnawing stomach by chewing a hole through my left cheek. The boys were still jumping from seat to seat, literally crawling around me in their excitement. The calm voice of the narrator droned on about sea life under the water before maddeningly explaining that we were preparing to dive. Just then the little pod sloshed to a halt and paused. The recording stopped. I held my breath, as if I would have to hold it the whole time we were underwater. It waited a breath longer than I could, then lurched forward again, turning exactly 180 degrees. Back towards the coast.

At first I thought there was a malfunction. Or maybe we didn’t pay for the whole cruise, but I saw all the little black pods shuffling back to the shore all at once. A woman’s voice came over the sound system, not nearly as calm as the recording blathering about sea kelp. “Everyone has been ordered ashore by the Transportation Authority. Stay calm and do not attempt to leave the craft for any reason.” Leave the craft….why? And as I thought those words, as I spoke them aloud at the very instant I thought them, as my head turned south while the words tumbled from my lips, I already knew the answer. Waterspouts. Tornadoes on the water. Oh. My. God. That is what had looked different from so very, very far away. The rain was not just coming down. It was also going up.

I crushed the rising panic hard into my stomach; packed it into some kind of box and locked it down so I could deal with my sons. My younger one, the marine enthusiast, was starting to realize we weren’t going to dive anytime soon, and had already begun his protests. I told them there was a storm and we had to go back to be safe. My older son must have seen through my locked box, seen the panic in my eyes, because he looked directly south and asked in a very small voice if it was a bad storm like from when I was little. I could not answer him. I did not know how bad it would be and I could not lie to him. I scanned the little room once again and discovered a cubby in the seats for life jackets. Just four. That’s why we had to split up into two groups. I prayed my husband wasn’t just sitting there looking out the window and was fastening the girls into the lifejackets as well. I clutched my boys to me and we watched the skies tumble in.

The pod stopped moving at some point, but the water was so choppy we hadn’t noticed exactly when. Three little paper bags had already made their way into the little sealed bucket on the floor and my stomach was contemplating a fourth. I then noticed that we were the only pod left that I could see. That did it. I pressed the panic button – well it was labeled “For Life Emergency Only – Coast Guard.” A red light flashed above our heads on the top of the pod’s exterior, but we could see it reflected off the water and the raindrops trickling down the windows. We waited some more. I wondered where my husband and the girls were. My little son started crying. I closed my eyes on my own tears and cuddled him as close as I could around the bulk of the life jackets. I left my other arm around my other son, who had lain down with his head on my lap. We stared out at sea and waited.

The wind was picking up and I could clearly see two waterspouts to our south. One was far out to sea, but the other was massive and near the coastline. I could see that it was still some distance away, but not knowing the wind speed, nor how far down the coast it actually was, that distance was no comfort to me. The waves around us had little foamy caps on them. I was watching the little crests and humming softly to the boys when we were bumped. I craned my neck and the boys jumped up. There was a tug pushing us to shore. The relief spread from my crown all the way to my feet in one hot instant, and I felt very faint. I slumped down on the floor shoved my head between my knees and breathed. My frightened sons copied my movements, thinking that was what we were supposed to do. I supposed it saved them from thunking their heads against the glass with every nudge from the rescue tug. My stomach emptied once again and the boys made fun of me; at least they were back to normal.

The sight of the Jump Point as our pod turned in sight of land again was the sweetest conglomeration of molded metal, painted steel and spotlights I had ever seen. Bar none. They had trouble opening the seal on the hatch because of the increase in pressure caused by the storm. I screamed into the cracks to stand back – I would kick this door down if I lost both legs doing it. And kick I did. The boys jumped and cheered as I bustled them out of the pod, throwing our life jackets into the arms of the nearest person wearing a University Sweatshirt. A quick scan of the small number of people on the dock showed no other members of my family. Water sprayed into the covered dock from the open sea. The rush of the wind and water was so loud no one could even attempt to tell me where my family had gone, if they had been able to hear me ask. We all struggled against the wind, holding tight to the rails, down the metal stairs into a building. I glanced back over my shoulder some 50 yards to where we’d just been standing and watched our pod get flipped up and out to sea again as if it were merely a loose bottle cap on the side of a busy road. The rescue tug tipped onto its side and the edges of my world bled black, my last fleeting thought for the safety of my girls as well, as the Coastie behind me caught me and rushed the rest of us inside.

**********

and that is when i woke up. i couldn’t breathe. i put my head between my knees and inhaled until my lungs could hold no more. i exhaled slowly and picked at a thread from the bedsheet. the moonlight cast a mournful glow upon the trees outside my window. i stood slowly and made my way to the childrens’ rooms. i sat on each of their beds with them, kissing and holding hands, not waking them. and trying so very hard not to cry.

so no. i can’t go on a cruise yet. i still haven’t gotten over my fear of the water. i still can’t stand the thought of being too far from the land to “make it back” – even without the terror of the uncommon waterspouts. i just can’t.