JREAMS - II - The Ship That Hadn't Left

It was my birthday. I was VIP on a military cruiser headed to Russia - and I still couldn't get a cup of coffee.

A dream set aboard an amphibious destroyer that was also, somehow, an RV, sitting on top of a carrier that nobody mentioned. The narrator wanders through passenger corridors and staff quarters, photographs a post-Cold War McDonald's for a friend whose visa just cleared, gets his drink order swallowed by a language gap, shakes hands with men in yellow vests who recognize him without words, and gets invited to Paris by two women he barely knew in waking life - only to find he can't afford the crossing and his mother can't cover it.

By the time he climbs to the rooftop to ask how far they've traveled, the answer is: nowhere. San Francisco Bay. The skyline lit up like a carnival the whole time.
The ship hadn't left yet.
Somehow that felt like enough.