Departing Twitter

The holiday cruise is drawing to a close. Many of the cruisers have a clutch of new best-friends-forever friendships. These were easily won and formed in the halcyon days in the far-flung resorts visited on the liner. They may have been melded over one too many shared jugs of sangria by the pool. Maybe they were sweated out under a burning sun in the queue waiting for the boats to take them ashore to see the old town. It’s possible that they were the tortured rapture of a shared grievance about cold showers or a badly stocked minibar at the rep’s desk. It’s the last night blues which inevitably sees all these BFFs grappling each other’s shoulders, swearing undying allegience to future get togethers back in the homeland, swigging yet more sangria and swapping phone numbers, Facebook details, and perish the thought, home addresses.
But this was no ordinary cruise it went on for years, the liner filled up with more and more passengers, more and more with complaints, a few too many people grappling other people’s shoulders uninvited, a lot of spilled sangria, and always somebody else’s towel on a favourite sunlounger. Then the rumours started that some hotshot captain was going to take the helm and set off on a new course. He was supposedly to take the liner to new beautiful lands with even greener grass to view from the deck. But the grass was astroturf and there’d be a charge for the free sangria. Lots of passengers took their chances, ...

Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 7, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Fiction Source Type: blogs