“Hallo, is yu alive?”

I opened my eyes. Bright. I could make out the blurry shape of a man leaning over me. My saliva stung of bitterness, I spat the tar out of my mouth and swallowed repeatedly.

“Whaer ar yu cum from?” He asked. A blue cap with a red star rested on his black hair, I couldn’t quite tell if he was looking at me through his narrow eyes.

“Sandfort,” I said. An easier reply than explaining my life story.

“Ooo, Sandfolt. Weli pletty, I go wan taim.”

“Who are you?”

“Mai neim ise Lǐ,” he told me as I got up and looked around. Despite being a fully grown man, Lǐ was about as tall as me. We were on a steel boat. It reeked of fish, and there were nets everywhere. “Was yo neim?”

“Leah.”

“Nas tu mit yu, Lia, whalecum tu Yunionswill Fishbaot!” He seemed rather jolly to have found me. “Cum wit mi nao. Lanchtaim, lanchtaim.” Lǐ scooped air noodles with his imaginary chopsticks.

I wasn’t going to refuse food, so I went along with him. Two others sat around a table on the gaslamp lit mess deck, they looked very similar to each other and Lǐ, all dressed in the same light blue uniform. I almost thought they were triplets, although one of them had greying hair, and the other a classic Van Dyke beard with both the curly mustache and upside down teardrop beard covered in breadcrumbs.

“Dis is Lia from Sandfolt,” Lǐ told them.

“Hello Lia, I am Gao.” A few crumbs fell from the guy’s beard. “This is Wu.”

“Excuse Lǐ’s speaking, he has a couple of screws missing, if you get what I’m saying,” Wu explained. They both spoke a lot more fluently than Lǐ.

“Hav sum food,” Lǐ told me. I sat down on a chair next to his, opposite of the other two men.

Lǐ smeared little orange pebbles on his slice of bread: “Cavia.”

I followed his lead and put some on my bread too.

I took a bite. Salty.

“Could I have some water?” I asked.

“Wata veli deti, no good no good,” Lǐ poured me a glass of white wine instead.

Didn’t like it, but I drank anyways. The three were talking and laughing in a language I couldn’t understand, I focused on the food. After three slices of bread, I finished the glass. Lǐ poured me another one. He had saved me and took me in, so I drank to be polite, but Lǐ could not stand seeing the glass being empty for a single second. Once again, he gave me a refill.

Four glasses in, it didn’t taste that bad, and dining with the happy strangers felt more and more pleasant.

“Nao wi sing,” Lǐ told me as Wu took a little bamboo flute out from behind his ear which I somehow hadn’t noticed until now. Gao grabbed a banjo-like instrument that had been leaning against the side of the table.

“Yi, er, san.”

The flute introduced the piece, then the banjo gradually added onto it. A wave like melody filled the room. It was calming, and I soon found myself swinging from side to side. Lǐ hummed to the tune, eventually letting out his full potential. Don’t know if it sounded better because I didn’t understand what he was singing, but it was soothing nonetheless.

I thought of Maria and I reading a book under a cherry blossom tree, far from the evils of this world, just the two of us. Then Mike came to mind, I could use another hug. Hoped he wasn’t worrying too much, he really seemed to care a lot for me.

Lǐ tapped his hands against the table to the beat. There was a shift in tempo. Rapid and bouncy; adventurous.

“Want dansing?” Lǐ got out of his chair.

Hell, why not? I took his hand. Nobody had taught me how to dance, but we skipped around in a circle, loudly tapping our feet, changing direction every now and then. All the moving around made my alcohol filled blood circulate quicker, and by the end, I was quite out of it.