Room Talk
“Eva, do you ever get tired of this old routine?” Jilleen laid back in her bunk with a cigarette in her hand. “I mean, our line of work and living aboard this ship. I sometimes wish, I could just leave and start new career. Something outdoors.” She laughed as the smoke from her cigarette lingered above her. Eva smirked, "Outside is a little too cold for me Jill but you know, I am up for trying anything new. Everything I do seems to be the same each day, taking this from them, giving this to those, it is all the usual and I need something to spice things up." She couldn't lie in her bunk, not unless she was going to sleep, she just sat on the edge while talking.
Jilleen turned on her side to look at her room mate and smiled. "Well, I wasn't thinking of joining the snipes on hull maintenance duty silly. I was thinking of being under the sun, on real solid ground. I suppose its a fantasy now, but if I could. I imagine myself managing some resort or better yet on a long vacation, doing absolutely nothing." She brought the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled the nicotine smoke. She watched Eva sitting on the edge of her own bunk.
"I thought you were giving up?!" Eva exclaimed when she looked up from her bunk at Jill, her shock evident in her voice. She had dreams as well, a want for a better life but she had unfortunately accepted the reality of her world, of this life and just got on with the daily tasks that passed as her duties now.
"Nah, I'm not brave enough to give up." She shifted her legs over her bunk and then sat up. "No. If I gave this up, then I would have to believe that their was something to hope for, beyond just the need to survive." She again sucked her cigarette, and then let out the smoke which drifted upwards to an air duct. "I live for paperwork, now."
Jilleen grabbed her ashtray and extinguished what remained of her cigarette. "I could always just get myself pregnant." She waved away what smoke lingered, habit from her younger days as a teenager, when her and Bridget would smoke secretly at school or at home.