A Fictional Series by J Quisumbing
Chapter 3 continued…
Before he can say anything, Merlie picked up his bags and proceeded to the stern where he thought she was going to deposit them in a cabin but instead she went straight to a spiral staircase that he didn’t even notice before. Then, a bigger surprise still, she disappeared downstairs. The admiral quizzically looked at Mae and Jona.
“Surprise!” They both said.
“Starting tonight, you’ll be sleeping with the fishes,” smiled Jona, “…so to speak. Come! Let’s go down.”
The admiral was a submariner and he was used to sleeping in tight quarters under fathoms of water, but when he went down just 9 feet down, what greeted him blew his mind away. It was a bedroom with an incredible view. His first thoughts was on an old Disney movie, ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’. The bed… a king-sized bed was facing a large round plexiglass window about 7 feet in diameter.
The admiral was automatically drawn to it. Because it was already evening, he could not penetrate the darkness except where the light of the room spilled on a bed of corals just under the window. A school of jacks swam by then disappeared into the depths afterwhich several crabs came crawling out from their crags and crannies. Then, a colorful parrot fish came by to graze on patches of algae on the rocks. Other marine life that one can find in a reef made their appearances.
“What do you think?” asked Jona.
“I’m thinking that you made friends with a certain marine architect that built all those houseboats in Dubai with underwater cabins.”
“Yup. Ours are not exactly as fancy as those in Dubai, but each of them can survive a stormy sea in a pinch. These 3 guest boats are designated as emergency lifeboats complete with solar panels, rations and a desalination system for freshwater. Each boat can handle 20 to 25 people max.”
“Excellent, Jona.”
“Meanwhile, we have a dinner to go to. Merlie will finish unpacking for you. You freshen up and we’ll see you there.”
“I don’t know if I want to go tonight,” said Tess Ramiscal. “She’s going to go wild when she sees that you married me.”
“Well, you can’t hide from her for the next 6 months,” Robby said. “Besides, I laid down the law with her. She’s here to do her job and I’ll be too busy to even deal with her.”
“I hope you’re right, but if she is the same like she was in college, we are in for a rough year.”
The reception dinner is going to be held in the second floor level of the residential island’s community center. If seen from a distance, it looked almost like a giant flying saucer. The center was essentially the food commons and recreation area for the residents of the island and the executive officers of the project.
Bree Grover was looking over the entire reception area. She was satisfied with the decorations that her students and the village women put up. The room with it’s round panoramic windows were beautifully decorated with local flowers and colorful paper streamers made from dried seaweed. The fifteen round tables on the other hand were elegantly adorned with pearly white table cloths with its embroidered hems, silverwares, crystal glasses and beautiful flowery centerpieces. Mae Quimby is really pulling all the stops. She strolled over to the buffet tables which were laden with food mostly of Filipino fares. Then she realized that she was still in her grungies. She dashed off.
To be continued…
Note from the author:
Oceanus Adventure is a fun effort on my part to enter the wonderful world of creative writing. It’s a story of a group of people who launched themselves into the Pacific Ocean on an artificial island to solve the Great Pacific garbage patch. My hopes is that this will end up into a TV series.
Comments and idea suggestions will be most welcomed. I hope you enjoy.
Johann Quisumbing 
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