Confusion was never an emotion I dealt with before discovering the green cabin, or more realistically, before fleeing the outcome of the pandemic. Now it seemed like a not so gentle demon sitting on my shoulder with it’s vile knife edged tail wrapped tightly around my neck. Each time I managed to feel that things were improving, that everything would be for the better, it tightened its slimy grip. It clawed fingers scratching my flesh leaving nearly invisible abrasions filled with the poisons of doubt and regret.

Yet I was not in a place, or in a situation I could revise or control. And when I finally accepted my fate, I left the captain’s chair and landed in a puddle of ice, cold water. Longing to be in the cabin with Margaret reminded me of what I’d witnessed during the storm. I stopped with both hands on the handrails down, one foot on the top step and understood that regardless of what I saw or experienced, I had no place else to go if I didn’t want to spend the night on the deck. And the air was cooling. I was not dressed for low temperatures.

Slowly, silently I went down and found Margaret wrapped in blankets watching my approach.

“I was wondering if you would spend the night up there.” She said, and opened her protective layer of blankets to invite me to join her.

“Just trying to understand this place we are in. The storms come out of nowhere and this one was at least twice as powerful as the first one I went through.”

She frowned and it looked quite pretty. So I went across the cabin and accepted her invite, finding that the blankets were warmed from her body heat. She made certain I was well within their embrace and closed the blankets around us.

I put my arm around her as she did me and the dread and confusion I’d felt melted into memory.