Andrew Ryan, I recalled, was a kid who lived in my neighborhood during my childhood. He was a good kid, though a little on the strange side. His parents were divorced when he was nine and he went to live with his grandmother in the Big Apple. That's when I met him at school. He looked like a nervous wreck and was shaking when he entered the classroom. The teacher sat him down behind me and he was quiet for about three months, until I started to talk to him.
He was a genius! His math skills were beyond his age group and he still was in my grade. He should've been in at least high school but here he was in middle school, drowning out the obscenities of his classmates and working hard at learning. He was an inspiration to me, and he was a good friend of mine.
But during high school his grades started to drop, he was losing focus in all of his classes. He was bent on creating a city underwater that he could do whatever he pleased in. People picked on him for his crazy idea and he got beat up a lot. He didn't care, he said, "Well, my friends, when the day comes that society is in ruin, the ocean will be on my shoulders and you will be crawling to me!"
That scared me a bit, honestly.
But I went along with his crazy idea, drawing up sketches on scrap paper in my mechanical drawing class and just getting down to his level when he started to talk about it. For all I knew the kid would be in a mental institution in a couple years anyway.
But he never did.
He enlisted in the army at the age of eight-teen and fought in WWII. People I talked to who knew him said "he always looked like he had a severe case of shell-shock but was always able to fight like a bad-ass." But when he returned from the war, no one ever really saw him again. That was the last they heard of him. He wasn't even at the victory celebrations.
I looked at that note for a bit. Was Andrew Ryan really still alive? I doubted it but decided to curb my curiosity and wandered down to the ferry docks. They weren't open for hours of course but I lay down on the beach, smelling the air and enjoying my free time. I sat and thought about my new chance, a life without cancer.
Before I knew it the docks were open and ferries were pouring from all over the place. I stumbled onto the docks and gave my ticket to the lady at the booth. She smiled warmly and stamped the ticket and I was on my way. The ticket said to go to station thirty-two, and I found the rickety dock with no problem, but there was no-one there. Oddly I still waited at the dock until a small rusty tugboat pulled up. The smell of it made me gag and I felt sea sick almost immediately.
An odd looking man appeared out of all the filth on the boat and shook my hand.
"Gooday mistah Jasper! Nice day we be havin'."
I responded trying to keep the contents of my stomach where it was,
"Yes… is this the boat to..." I peered at my ticket. "Rapture?"
The man smiled through the grit on his teeth.
"Of course!" he exclaimed. "Why would a fine vessel like this'm be goin' anywhere else?"
Fine vessel my ass, I thought.
Within minutes I was on the stinky boat and the engines started up. He beckoned me inside but I told him I like to be outside on a ship, which wasn't a lie. I love to see the waves against the boat and all the islands we pass. A little later my stomach was under control and I was on my way to Rapture, the city of opportunity.