It was the morning of October 30th and shift change when Ochre, Grey, Green and Fawn found themselves sharing a table in the commissary.
“I see preparations for tomorrow are in full swing,” Fawn observed with amusement as three people walked by wheeling trolleys of crates marked ‘Fake cobwebs’, ‘Lights’, ‘Pumpkins’ and ‘Bones, assorted’. He plucked up the notice left on the table featuring a large caricature of the Headless Horseman, demonic-looking carved pumpkins and the Grim Reaper all on the background of a graveyard. “Themed dinner tomorrow too. ‘Face your fears’,” he read out in his best attempt at an ominous tone. “‘Will you dare to sit at the Table of Thirteen?’” He chuckled and set it down again. “Any of you game for it?” Fawn asked, looking at the others.
“I’ll admit that’s one superstition I don’t want to take a chance on,” Grey admitted, absently swirling the dregs of his coffee. “Sit thirteen at the table and one will die within the year. I don’t want to tempt fate, not with this job. Doesn’t make sense, but what superstition does?”
The obvious crack of ‘shove Scarlet into the 13th chair, problem solved’ went unsaid, jokes like that were in very bad taste on Cloudbase.
“My superstition does.” Ochre raised his head from the catalogue he was perusing. “Full moon. All the weirdness comes out on a full moon. Or a Friday 13th. Worst is when it’s a full moon and Halloween, full moon and Halloween on Friday or a full moon on Friday 13th. It’s called luna-cy for a reason,” he concluded with a swig of coffee. “What’s the moon tomorrow night, anyway?”
“Waxing gibbous,” Green answered promptly. “I saw it setting half-full on my way down from the control room.”
“Good to know it shouldn’t be too crazy. I’ve got tomorrow night off for the costume party.” Ochre glanced at Fawn. “Doc? Any superstitions in medicine?”
Fawn made a rueful face. “The ‘Q’ word,” he admitted. Ochre nodded knowingly, all emergency services feared the ‘Q’ word, but the other two gave him blank looks so Fawn elaborated. “Do not, under any circumstances, say ‘it’s quiet’, or any other phrase that means it’s not busy, because you will be busy shortly, especially if you say it in the Emergency Department. It’s probably just confirmation bias and pattern recognition like most superstitions, but still, like Grey said, why chance it?” He shrugged, speared a cube of melon from his fruit bowl and looked to Green. “What about you?”
“The only one I can think of right now was more weirdness than superstition.” Green shrugged and poked at a crumb on his plate. “There was a certain server in Marineville that only one tech could fix. Anyone else and they’d never get to the end of it, but she could be in and out in ten minutes; it liked her. When she transferred out, they had to glue her file photo to the wall to make the server behave. I do remember Commander Shore complaining about how the shipwrights would never lay a keel on a Friday because it was bad luck,” he added after a moment’s pause.
“I’ve heard about that one.” Ochre frowned in thought, as he tried to recall the details. “Didn’t the British Navy try to prove it wasn’t unlucky by laying a ship’s keel on a Friday, name it Friday, the captain was Captain Friday, launched it on a Friday 13th and it vanished with all hands?”
Green shook his head. “No, that got debunked as an urban legend decades ago.”
“Nothing about the Bermuda Triangle?” Ochre asked curiously. “Isn’t that close to Jamaica?”
“That’s been debunked hundreds of times,” Green chuckled, then his expression became thoughtful. “Plenty of things about the sea in general, though. I remember the old fishermen telling us kids there are just some nights you don’t go out there, unless you have to.”
“Ditto,” Grey chimed in, completely serious. “When the sea is glass calm, there’s no wind and no moon, something is going to happen to someone on the water.”
“How often do you suppose it’s Titanica versus something else?” Fawn asked.
“Often enough.” Grey shared a knowing look with Green. “Strange things happen out there, Doc. Stuff you can’t explain away with sleep deprivation, wild imaginations or stress. Yeah, some of it might be Titanica or Pacifica, but others…” He trailed off and changed the subject. “I wish I could ask Marina about it. She was learning sign language when I left. Asking her would be a lot easier now than the point and guess Troy Tempest was doing.”
“You’re not a fan of his?” Ochre grinned as he asked, picking up the note of derision in Grey’s voice.
“I’m definitely not.” Green pulled a face. “Great submariner, but the communication skills of a brick.”
“I’d round that up to people skills in general,” Grey groused and reached for a banana. “I was surprised Atlanta didn’t up and boot him out the hatch some days. Not that she was much better in the people skills department, to be honest.”
“So we got the better deal when Spectrum hijacked you?” Fawn bantered.
“By miles,” was Grey’s and Green’s almost simultaneous reply, then they looked at each other and grinned.
“Well, this has been fun but duty calls.” Fawn scooped up his dishes. “See you at the party,” he said, by way of farewell.
The others left one by one, until Ochre was left with his empty plate and catalogue. Out of curiosity, he picked up the notice, eyed the cartoons and shuddered. Something about the challenge and deliberately setting out to tempt fate just didn’t sit right with him. Sure, Fawn might write off superstition as pattern recognition and confirmation bias, but a half-remembered line from Hamlet had always resonated with Ochre - There is more in heaven and earth than your philosophy.
His brow knit as he pondered exactly why he didn’t like the notice, eyeing the Grim Reaper and also recalling what an ancient babushka who’d lived next door and babysat him a few times had once told him: When you call something by name, don’t be surprised if it answers.
Ochre turned the notice face down and collected his things. Maybe eating in his room tomorrow would be a better idea.