The Queen Catherine’s Election

I felt like that I had an amazing idea for a story. The thought of learning how humans adapt to a world that flooded unexpectedly would captivate a wide audience. after writing the back story portion of this idea I wasn’t able to pinpoint where I wanted to go. I do want to revisit this idea later, so stay tuned. this story was inspired by the prompt “When I walked outside the world smelled like…”

You would think that once a major event has passed, everyone would be told the facts as to what happened. But the realization that different groups can have different histories based on their perspective proves that even facts are not always reliable. What makes it worse is when information if not forthcoming, humans can’t help but fill in the gaps. Before you know it history is written by storytellers who were never there to begin with.

The history books that were provided to the children of The HMAS Queen Catherine talked of a time in the year the polar ice caps all melted all at once in the span of a few months. It’s said that it was the ozone layer breaking down after years of neglect by humans. This information was recorded from spotty news coverage the ship received back then. The Queen Catherine was nothing more than a cruise ship back then. People were able to take luxury vacations at sea and visit ports along the way of a set route. When the water began to rise, ports were flooding rapidly. Before anyone was able to react, the entire surface of the planet had changed. Governments around the world were in shambles. Millions of people were dead and so many were displaced with no where to go. With so much chaos there were those that took advantage of the situation and wars, both civil and international, broke out everywhere.

That’s when cruise ship captains around the world started declaring themselves floating countries. Captain Donald Carns and first mate Kenneth sweeting were no different. It was a struggle and it caused some unrest onboard for a while. But eventually the inhabitants of the queen catherine came together to determine the laws, necessary punishments, currency, identification, living accommodations, work arrangements and even taxes. Theos who wished to disembark and try to make their way back to their previous homes were allowed to, but with no assistance from the ship. The cruise line companies no longer existed either, so many people stayed and made new lives for themselves on the sea.

Two hundred years later, historians around the globe still debated the cause of the ice caps melting and the cause of the subsequent wars. The land countries boarders look nothing like they did before. There are about 100 floating countries throughout the world. Some of which stay in an area between land masses and some with travel the entire world. There are no regulations on where a ship can travel if they are a country of their own. There are also still cargo ships for trade between land masses. Each floating country is small in population size compared to land masses. But it does mean that the governments tend to be able to listen to and cater to their people better.

Emmette Carns was born and raised on the ship. His father worked in the greenhouses tending to the fruits and vegetables that grew on the ship and his mother worked in the government offices mostly in the citizenship department. He had an older sister Jessica, who had just married Ryan, a nice guy who focused on the cleaning and maintenance of the ship. Emmette was still young at 20 but extremely smart and charming. Throughout school he tried to learn all he could about the history of the world, the ship, and the different governments. He would volunteer and be intern in all the different jobs that were offered. From garbage services to high-ranking government officials. He even got to shadow the captain for a month. Everyone assumed that Emmette just didn’t know what he wanted to do but Emmette just loved knowing how it all functioned.

When the current captain, James Whitmire, announced his retirement, an election was arranged to replace him. That first step was nominations. Emmette was surprised to hear his name announced along with the first mate, Lyle Jinkins, and the head of law enforcement, Thomas long. Emmette had just finished school a year prior and had started- a month later working in the kitchen for food distribution. Emmette had been happy with his position but knew he had been described as a born leader. So once the shock wore off, he realized that people believed he could do it.

Both Lyle and Thomas started their campaigns right away. Lyle stood on a platform of ship maintenance needing a bigger priority. Wanting to train the younger generation early on what it takes to keep the ship afloat. Saying that if we don’t teach them how, they could run into real problems in the future. Especially since there is no saying if there will be land available for them to claim when the ship is no longer able to stay afloat.

Thomas was looking more at the short term. His platform centers around stricter check when docked. The last time they were docked making trades a group of young criminals managed to gain access to the ship without the proper documentation. The criminals had vandalized many areas of the ship, stolen property and eventually caused the death of a family of four before getting caught. The citizens of The Queen Catherine lived in fear of these criminals until they had been apprehended.

Emmette on the other hand did not know what platform he should stand on. Both his opponent’s ideas were good, but he wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted to make promises about. Besides, from his time learning at the jobs the current maintenance crew had an amazing internship that taught both short term and long-term problems and solutions. And once it was discovered how the criminals got aboard, more staff were hired, trained and positioned more strategically along the ship. As well as new scanners to be able to determine real and fake documents. So, Emmette didn’t know why these platforms needed to be addressed.

Emmette decided he would do what he does best and learn what the people wanted. He started going out and talking to people about what they would like to see addressed by a new captain.

What he learned was that the people didn’t feel heard. There were many issues covering all aspects of the ship and the day-to-day life of the citizens. But bringing their issues to the attention of anyone in government let alone the captain was nearly impossible. One family of three wanted to report a safety concern of their balcony that would also affect their neighbors. They got shuffled between departments before someone finally had them fill out paperwork to be submitted. Then for six months no one acknowledged the concern. The dad made a temporary fix to protect themselves and the neighbors. But they had no way of following up to see if anyone had looked at the paperwork. Eventually one of the neighbor children got hurt, not severely, but enough that the issues had to be addressed before something worse happened.

Emmette remembered that incident. He had been doing a stretch in the office of cabin maintenance when a random request came in from family housing. The physical copies of the maintenance request were smudged and crinkled like it had been stuffed in the back of a drawer for a while. He only had a day left before moving on to his next internship, but he flagged it as high priority. That was a month before the child was hurt.

Another man works in electrical and he had an idea for upgrading the solar panels so that the gride could be upgraded for newer technology. When he proposed that to the head of electrical power, he was told he could propose it in the next meeting. That meeting keeps getting pushed back and he has not been able to talk to anyone else.

So, Emmette decided that it would be his platform. More open communication. It took Emmette two months to come to this conclusion. By then Lyle and Thomas had been pushing hard and just about everyone knew all about them. Lyle even made a comment about how Emmette was too young. Thomas jumped on that by pointing out Emmette’s lack of campaigning, saying he wasn’t taking this seriously enough. Emmette let them talk. He knew he had met much of the population between his time job shadowing and this survey that the people would know that was not his true character. He was ready to show them what he was made of.

 The following ten months were grueling. He had to lay out a realistic plan of how to open communication would work. He wanted to try to revamp the form submissions to electronic so that there was a way to track its progress. He wanted to implement town hall meetings so that citizens can learn what issues are being addressed as well as bring concerns immediately.  He also had to get his name out there as an active canister. He had interviews with all the press highlighting his want to be more available than past captains. During the debates Emmette was able to hold his own against Thomas and Lyle. He answered all questions confidently and did his best to bring conversations around to his platform whenever possible. Especially when Lyle kept bringing up his age and inexperience.

Emmette did have to smear the other two men when his age came into question again for the fifth time in the third debate. He stayed calmed and asked if the two men were trying to change to a monarchy or a dictatorship. Yes, they had addressed his age, but he had been nominated without asking to be. He listened to the people before deciding on a platform. He had previously worked every job on the ship. It may be short experience, but it was more than the others could claim outside their own jobs. Without listening to others, a good captain becomes one that will sink a ship fast. Emmette just wanted to hear the citizens before making decisions that would affect the rest of their lives.

Election day was nerve racking with a little more than three thousand people on board, everyone sixteen and older are allowed to vote it would be very easy for there to be a three-way tie. Emmette had not been able to sleep the night before. The election committee had promised to take their time counting the votes to ensure an accurate count.

Emmette was in one of the community rooms when the announcement came early the next morning. He couldn’t believe his eyes! He had gotten just over two thirds of the vote.

After the inauguration Emmette wasted no time setting up the first town hall meeting. It was held within the first week of being in office. He felt a sense of pride as he walked outside, the world smelled like saltwater, and he was eager to start his career.