The eye of the lion

“You must be mad, dude,” said the old sailor looking at the guy. “You want to go to Europe with war knocking at the door! Who would be so stupid??

Tom Barrow looked at him from his bunk-bed and shrugged his shoulders.

“If war breaks out, it won’t make any difference whether you’re in Paris, Australia or Virginia. You’ll die anyway.”

Another voice joined in the discussion. It was Ida, the ship’s chief engineer. A fat black man of about fifty.

“They say that Africa or South America is a good option in these situations,” he declared.

“So they say,” said Tom, rubbing his shoulder which was hurting again. His back was aching even more. He’d thought that the two hundred dollars he paid the Captain for his fare

would be enough. And it was: it had covered his fare, but not food, as he discovered on the second day. He’d had to choose between spending his last hundred bucks on food, or working to earn his chow, and he’d had to pick the last option. He couldn’t afford the luxury of arriving in Paris without a dime.

“And what the hell’s waiting for you in Paris?” asked the old marine with rotten teeth.

Tom Barrow looked at him and thought for a moment before he answered.

“I just know I need to be there.”

The black engineer looked at the type-writer case under Barrow’s bed, and pointing to it, he asked,

“And what’s in that weird case of yours?”

Tom looked at it and felt a glimmer of hope as he replied.

“My future.”