The No Name Diary

Sunday 20th of October

Friday was another day of the lunchtime English classes which I give in the local school. The first thing that happens when I walk into the classroom is that Bea, one of my 8 year-old students, grabs my arm excitedly to show me her new glittery stickers. They are so glittery that upon looking at them I become momentarily blinded by the light. Regaining my sight I am drawn to the loud moans of Juan, one of the boys, who has now somehow gotten to the end of the corridor where he is outside the bathroom lying on the floor. Alejandro, his friend, has pushed him over and is walking out of the bathroom heading back to class, which in turn involves him stepping on and over Juan’s prostrate body before casually bopping his way back into the room as cool as a cucumber (they’re good friends those two). This is the group with Miguel, a boy I gave such a severe warning about answering when I call his name for the register, that now anytime I do say his name, during the class, or even anywhere in the school, he screams “PRESENT!”. He’s got a sense of humour, I’ll give him that.

The lesson is superheroes today, things we can and can’t do, food for thought there… After a few hours, another class of equally colourful characters and I’m off again to get to my other job at the English academy. I find I’ve half an hour to spare once I’ve done the cycle, so I stop, sit down on a bench under the dense leaves of a tree in the little park nearby and open The No Name Diary:

Chapter 1

Laif awoke with a start to the roaring sound of the speedboat’s motor and its rhythmic bumping on the waves. Her oak brown hair was swept, flapping across her face, she pushed it out of her eyes only to receive a large cold spray of water bringing her further to her senses. Looking around wide-eyed she took in the spectacle; a sea with an unfathomable number of vessels and people; some in sailing boats, others amassed on ships, some in kayaks, dinghies, rafts, some rowing, some swimming. There were people crying out for help with outstretched arms to the boats around them, others dancing on luxury yachts with bottles in their hands, others taking photos from the balconies of enormous ocean liners, all of this activity crowding the water as far as the eye could see.

Laif’s white and weather-beaten speedboat negotiated the hulls of other vessels with a life of its own, she looked around the decking for something, anything to give a clue, to explain her sudden presence upon that fast-moving craft, but there was nothing. Laif shouted out to some men on a boat which for a moment thumped up and down moving parallel to her own:

“Where are we going?!”, They looked at her, and as her eyes met those of the man closest, she was suddenly possessed by the flashing images of his life. It played out before her in a rapid trance, the birth, a smiling exhausted mother, a boy riding a bicycle along a pavement, school, romance, an accident, an arm in a cast, hospital and a job painting houses, a long sustained embrace with another man, the one she recognised as the other passenger in his boat. The visions stopped abruptly, then she was back, just staring at him, as he looked quizzically back before disappearing off ahead.

Looking down into the water there were even people in old diving suits pacing along the seabed. She gripped the bench she was on and continued meeting people’s gazes, each time seeing their lives play out before her, blessed ones, tragic ones, mundane and frightening, until finally she sat back with her head lolling resigned to the beating rhythm of the boat hitting the waves, overwhelmed by the vastness of human emotion and experience she had seen in the different faces she had passed. She did look up again after a while, unable to resist the temptation of maybe knowing where she was heading. This time a bright orange life vest caught her eye, the man wearing it thrown about by all the commotion, being dragged under the water, continuously resurfacing. As she passed him he caught her gaze with his big yellow bloodshot eyes that were set into a gaunt face. He smiled a calm, sad smile, then he was gone, for some reason his life kept a mystery to her.

The speedboat moved on relentlessly, sometimes overtaken, sometimes overtaking in that surreal race towards nothing. Eventually the sun began to set and all the activity around Laif slowly disappeared, the waves ceased to rise and finally, surreally, she was all alone with the pink and orange hues of the horizon playing off the water. She noticed how now the calm sea was gently rippling forward, as if moved by an imperceptible breeze. Then came the night, where Laif began to feel cold and scared, yet finally, slowly rising up ahead, there was a dark mass of land which palpitated like a beating heart…