Troller

The device Royce gave me helped immensely. My vocabulary expanded in a matter of hours. I hadn’t realized there were so many things to learn. Royce came to check on me a couple of times as he went about his day. I was displeased when he took the device out of my hand.

“Please, Royce, give it back,” I pleaded. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung slightly open. Then he gave me a beautiful smile. It gave me such delight to see it.

“You’re learning pretty quickly, but you need to take a break. You’ve been at it for eight hours. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” I thought about it more as my stomach grumbled. “Yes, Royce, I’m hungry.” I unfolded my legs, pushed up from the bed, and immediately fell. Well, not completely. Royce caught me. 

“Take it slow.” He put his arm around my waist and he helped maneuver me out of his room, and down the walkway toward the food area. “What would you like to eat? We don’t have much to choose from right now since I haven’t restocked yet. The season’s ended, so the normal supplies won’t be in for a few months. I can go to the store tomorrow and get what we need.”

I understood about half of what he said so I focused on the question. “I eat fish. Crab. Seaweed. Snails. Lobster. Seagulls. It was the soup, yes?”

Royce sat me at the little table in the corner, then moved about the room again as I watched him. He gave me a curious look and replied, “Ah, no, that was synthetic protein broth. It’s supposed to taste like chicken, not seagulls, but I guess they might be the same thing.”

“Oh, chicken. Land bird. I remember. It was good.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Royce said with a smile. “How about we try a sandwich?”

“I know this word, but why would one eat sand? The picture was not sand.”

Royce laughed, “Well, it’s not made of sand, it’s made of bread. Have you had bread before?”

“No.” I was curious. I saw a picture of course, but we didn’t have anything like that where I came from. 

Royce paused for a moment and “Well,” he started, then stopped. Then looked at me. “Maybe it would be better if I showed you instead.”

I watched as Royce spread thick substances on squares of material that I was unfamiliar with. He squished the two pieces together and then squished two more together. When he came to the table, he brought the material with the substances on a plate. He turned to the preparation area and retrieved two cups with a white substance he had poured into both. 

I wasn’t sure what to do with them at first. Royce noticed and helpfully demonstrated. “Here, like this.” He took a bite and I watched him as he chewed. To say I was fascinated would be an understatement. I picked up the other sandwich and mirrored Royce’s actions. 

I‘d never tasted anything like it. It was soft. Sweet. Sticky. It was wonderful and it stuck to the roof of my mouth. I spent a moment savoring the bite I’d taken before I swallowed. “What is this? Do all sandwiches taste like this?”

Royce’s smile warmed me to my core. He wasn’t cruel when he answered my questions. Our elders had told us humans were cruel. Royce continued to prove them wrong. 

“No, there are different kinds. This is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” He opened the two pieces and showed me the substances. “This is peanut butter, and this is strawberry jam. You put them on bread,” he pointed to the soft material, “and they make a sandwich.”

“Oh. It is good.” I took another bite as I watched Royce drink some of the white liquid substance from a cup. I stopped shoving the sandwich into my face long enough to ask about the liquid. “What is this?”

“Milk.”

“Milk, Royce? ”

“Do you want to try it?”

I nodded and picked up the cup in front of me. I took a sip and the sour sweetness didn’t agree with me. It did make the sandwich pieces softer, easier to eat. I tried again and it was easier to drink, but I preferred the protein soup. 

“Do you like it?”

I shook my head and took another drink. Royce laughed. “It’s okay if you don’t like it.” 

We ate in silence for a while. When Royce was done, he wiped at his face with a cloth. I was perplexed by this. I took the cloth and did the same thing, which made Royce laugh again. 

“Here, let me help. Like this,” He said as leaned toward me, his hand went to the back of my neck and gently held it as he swiped the cloth at the corners of my mouth. I felt it pull slightly and realized that I had the sticky substances on my face. “There.” 

I tried to smile, but didn’t feel it. With each thing he helped me with, I felt a sense of exhilaration, but there was also the shame of not understanding. This was the longest I’d spent out of the water, and I had so much to still learn. 

“Royce.”

“Yes, Troller?”

I was embarrassed to ask, but I knew the land dwellers were different. Though I’d seen many relieve themselves of all kinds of things from the side of the boat, I didn’t want to use the side of the boat but if I had to, I would. I stood up and looked around. There was a basin nearby. I stood up slowly and moved toward it. As I fumbled with my pants, Royce approached me. Before I was able to lower them enough to relieve myself, he touched my arm gently.

“No, no, don’t do that here. Let me show you.” He offered his hand. I took it and he brought me back to his room and opened a small closet. He opened the lid of what looked like a bucket bolted to the floor. It wasn’t as high up as the basin in the other room, which certainly made it easier to use.

“This is a toilet. You relieve yourself into it, and then press this handle. When you are done, you wash your hands in the sink.” He showed me the sink device along with the toilet device.

“Where does it go?” It seemed everything went down a hole. I wondered if it went directly into the water. 

“It flushes it to storage which we use as fuel for the boat.”

“Your waste makes the boat go?”

“Yeah. It’s a clever system some technomage designed. A lot of vehicles use it, though on land they have stations that distribute the fuel.”

I nodded and only understood a small fraction of what he’d said. He stood there and I pulled at my pants which startled him. He moved so I could reach the floor bucket that fueled the boat.

“Sorry. I’ll leave you to it. I need to clean the galley up anyway.” He left and I walked into the small room by myself.

When I was done I pressed the handle and my waste disappeared. I wondered why people had used the side of the boat if these things were available. I washed my hands and dried them as Royce had. When I left the small room, I saw the device and returned to my studies. I fell asleep at some point, but when I woke up later with a blanket wrapped around me, Royce was not there.