Tim and the Moon

The submarine was throbbing at the moment that Johnny told his bunk mate that the cafeteria was almost out of bananas, and that bananas were a good source of potassium, which his bunk mate Aaron already knew, and that potassium was apparently very good for you. The internal fittings of the submarine creaked and groaned, rattled, clattered. The thin partition walls were made from lightweight melamine. They had a subtle check pattern as if drawn in red ink on to a grey background, thousands of tiny boxes to break up the monotony. It was the only decoration inside the submarine. They reminded Johnny of holidays that he used to take as a child with his parents, when they would stay in caravans, and the walls of the caravans would have a similar design.

Aaron then imparted some information which he thought that Johnny would find interested, the confines of his bunk giving his words an intimacy which accentuated every syllable and increased his enjoyment of telling Johnny that their mutual friend Tim, who worked a different shift, but whom they met socially in the cafeteria or in the lounge sometimes, had recently married the moon. He told Johnny that by all accounts the ceremony was lovely, and Johnny asked if it were a pagan affair, knowing that the moon features prominently in pagan belief, and Aaron replied that it had been a Methodist ceremony, and that they loved each other dearly, even though Tim was now deployed for a few months and they would not see each other for a while.

Every now and then the vessel shuddered. If the outer structure of the submarine were to fail, then there would be a catastrophic implosion, which is one of the thoughts that both Johnny and Aaron understood at all times yet never voiced, and Tim, too, though they put such knowledge at the rear of their minds. Death would come instantaneously and both favoured implosion as a means of their demise rather than a gradual sinking, drowning, water rushing through the thin, metal tube. They were both quiet for a while. Johnny could hear Aaron moving in the bunk below. He had not realised that it was possible to marry the moon, or whether the moon could be married to more than one person at any one time. He wanted to ask some questions to Aaron just to strengthen his understanding of the situation, and the logistics involved in lunar nuptials, but he also knew that people, Tim included, were entitled to privacy when it came to personal matters.

Johnny lay back in his bunk and he tried to relax, and he thought again of the pattern on the lightweight walls of the submarine, and how an engineer had once explained to him that the walls had been constructed in such a way as to dampen acoustics and therefore make the rooms on the submarine quieter for those who were trying to get to sleep. In the half gloom of their cabin, he could just make out the ceiling, which was curved slightly and made of what looked like white moulded plastic, but he knew that the material it was made from would have to be fire resistant and to a higher standard than most materials. It was amazing that the navy had gone to so much trouble for the comfort of their submariners, and it was probably their way of consoling them because they had to carry the burden of the knowledge that they could be wiped out by an implosion at any moment.

It was impossible not to think about Tim and his marriage to the moon because although he had played it cool when Aaron had told him, the truth was that Johnny hadn’t known about it, and he hadn’t even suspected that Tim was the marrying kind, for Tim was a man who was solemn and devoted to his duties. Johnny had often observed Tim cleaning the torpedo tubes, which he did with an attention to detail that everyone on board found admirable. He wondered how Tim had met the moon and he theorised that it must have been at night, he must have met the moon in one of the bars that they went to when on shore leave, that he would have seen the moon and fallen for the moon’s charms, come under the moon’s orbit, the moon’s face had lit up when seeing Tim, and who knows what secret chemical alterations occur within the biology of two people when love becomes a possibility. Tim would have told the moon that he was a submariner and the moon would have seen a romantic side to his job, though the moon would not have known that Tim had a fear of commitment and a tendency towards the maudlin. Tim would have told a subtle joke about the bar or the town where they were on shore leave, and although it would not have been hilarious, the moon would have beamed and felt grateful at Tim for demonstrating this side of his personality, and Tim would have argued that he had a fear of commitment and a tendency towards the maudlin, and the moon would have dismissed all of his supposed faults. And then a dance would have begun, the dance of life in which two souls intertwine and tie aspects of their lives in such a way that neither half could possibly conceive of a world in which the other did not exist, and that was when they would have decided to get married, and Johnny had to admit that he was jealous.

Yet Johnny was sure that Tim had not thought properly about the situation, that Tim wouldn’t have the proper equipment for zero gravity, Tim would not be able to make time to see the moon, Tim would find himself floating and only then it would be if Tim had managed to break free from the Earth’s gravity and atmosphere, did Tim have some kind of breathing apparatus, he wondered, had Tim even thought about this, was Tim not taking on too much marrying the moon, did he know the demands of the moon, did he worry about the age difference, did he worry about geological features, did the moondust not put him off, he thought, moondust stuck to his moon boots, people thinking I know what you’ve been up to you dirty fiend, Tim saying that it didn’t matter because they were married, did Tim not think of the innuendo, that the moon existed in a vacuum, you won’t survive long without specialist equipment, have you even thought about that, Johnny wondered, and the craters, so many grey craters, and where could they possibly go for a honeymoon, possibly to Venice with Tim leaning over, leaning over the canal and seeing the moon in the canal reflected asking what are you doing in there my dear, what are you doing in there?

And he was worried for his friend, worried for his colleague, there was so much going on with the thought of imminent implosion and the lack of bananas in the cafeteria. He could hear now Aaron snoring slightly in the confines of his bunk, lucky Aaron to have to not deal with all these questions, because his head felt like it was zipping and sparking all over the place, his head felt like it had a short circuit which, he understood, was a probably source of fire, and you wouldn’t want fire down here in the depths, it’s why the ceiling was constructed of a material which was of a higher and tougher industry standard than you would ordinarily find in comparable craft. It was all Aaron’s fault, no, it was all Tim’s fault for marrying the moon, it was the fault of both of them, and it was the fault of every human who had ever existed that Johnny could not sleep because there was too much going on, and it was the thought of imminent implosion, and whether Tim had the clothing necessary for zero gravity, and why couldn’t everyone else just calm down for a moment or two, why couldn’t every one else just calm the fuck down?

Inches of steel hull separated Johnny and Aaron and everyone else from humpback whales and giant squid. Just the other side of me, Johnny often thought, oblivion awaits. The lunar glow does not reach down here, not down to these depths, it is a permanent inky blackness and perhaps that was why Tim had married the moon because he was in a place where the moon would never be able to find him. Was that the comforting thought that Johnny needed to sleep? That in marrying the moon, Tim was actually running away from what others had deemed inescapable? After all, did Johnny not have a fear of commitment and a tendency to the maudlin? The only time he ever smiled was after having cleaned the torpedo tube, glistening, you could eat your dinner off it. If only he had a moon to show it to. How lucky was Tim? If only Johnny could marry the moon.

In the silence of the night, Aaron stirred in the bunk below, and he asked if Johnny was asleep, and Johnny replied that he wasn’t, and Aaron chose that moment to confess that he often thought of imminent implosions and that immediate nonexistence was a fear that he could not remove from his head, and Johnny replied that it was easy, he just had to stop thinking about it, that he shouldn’t let these thoughts intrude. The submarine chose that moment to shudder as if it was scared of something. The internal fixtures rattled, the cups hanging in the cafeteria, where there were now no bananas, jingled together. Perhaps it had brushed against a sperm whale.

BIO: Robert Garnham is a writer, performer and humorist based in Devon in the UK.