An hour into our walk, the park narrowed against a freeway.
The snow had returned despite the forecast. Cross-country skiers glided between the trees while traffic hissed somewhere ahead.
I knew our ferry terminal sat beyond the highway, somewhere along the harbor, but I couldn’t see a way through.
Then Dani found a sign.
It stood beside a fork in the trail, brown metal with a picture of a boat and a single word:
HAMNPIRSVÄGEN
We followed it.
A hundred meters later, the path ended at a metal staircase climbing toward a pedestrian bridge. It crossed the freeway, then continued into a glass-enclosed structure suspended over the water on stilts.
Christmas lights outlined its entrance in the shape of a giant heart.
Dani laughed.
~
Inside, a glass hallway stretched into the snowy distance.
I kept expecting it to end.
Instead, it crossed above railway tracks, then an access road, then the harbor itself. Dark water moved beneath us. Snow blew sideways across the bay and struck the glass.
Far ahead, I could just make out a cruise ship.
It looked small.
We kept walking.
The ship grew larger.
So did the people around us. A couple pulled matching suitcases. A family shepherded tired children. Business travelers rolled their bags behind them.
More people appeared from behind us and joined the same direction.
The mud on the metal grating showed their footprints.
We followed them.
~
Through the glass, the ship continued growing.
First I could see the portholes.
Then the bow.
Then one deck.
And another.
Every time I thought I had its size, another level appeared above it.
By the time we reached the terminal, the ship no longer looked like a ship.
It looked like an apartment building someone had parked in the water.
~
At last there, the atrium opened before us like a shopping mall.
Glass elevators climbed through the open space. Restaurants and boutiques lined both sides. A pianist played beneath colored lights while passengers rolled suitcases across polished floors.
I stopped to take photographs.
Dani stopped beside me.
“Cabin first.”
The long walk across Stockholm had left her dragging her feet. The warmth inside the ship had made it worse.
I unzipped my jacket.
“Five minutes.”
“Cabin first.”
I looked up at the elevators.
Then put my camera away.
~
Our key card read:
1-302.
Finding it proved harder than expected.
The elevator where we stood began at deck seven.
Another went down only to deck three.
We found a stairwell, followed it, and came out beside heavy steel doors overlooking rows of parked cars.
We doubled back.
Passengers moved around us carrying drinks, shopping bags, and suitcases.
We found another elevator.
This one went lower.
The polished floors disappeared.
So did the chandeliers and piano music.
Fluorescent lights replaced them. Rubber flooring. Low ceilings. Narrow hallways lined with identical doors.
A fire-escape map showed the entire ship in cross-section.
Restaurants and bars occupied the upper decks.
Cabins filled the middle.
The vehicle decks stretched below.
I ran my finger down the diagram.
Deck one.
We were almost at the bottom.
We stepped out.
1-302 was three doors down.
~
Inside, the room held two narrow beds, a small bathroom, and two folding bunks mounted to the wall.
Nothing more.
Dani dropped her backpack onto one of the beds.
“We made it.”
I looked around.
Then back toward the hallway.
My hand found the camera hanging at my side.
The ship still had twelve decks I hadn’t seen.
~
I slammed my weight against the ship’s doors and they finally opened.
I hadn’t expected the wind.
It slammed into me and slid me backward along the slick deck. Ice stung my face and covered my camera in a dusting of snow. The temperature plummeted.
I staggered to the railing and leaned over for a better view.
We floated between two islands with lighthouses on top.
Snowfall covered the rocky and untouched surfaces, so I could hardly see them against the cloud-covered sky.
I watched the snow sweep down from the hilltops, across the frozen sea, and meet the hull in one unbroken plane.
My eyes saw no distinction between earth, water, and sky.
Whether we sailed on the ground or sailed through the clouds, I couldn’t tell until our hull split it open to show a streak of black water between the fractured ice.
I slid along the length of the ship, covering my face against the pelting sleet to the stern.
The watery wound left by the ship’s wake drift together and heal in the distance behind me.
White turned to black and back to white.
It blinded me like the sky.
~
When I could stand the cold no longer, I went inside to rejoin Dani in our cabin.
It sat in the same plane as the water—the ice moved outside the walls. It made scraping sounds as we broke through it.
The sound shook the walls.
I held my hands over my ears and waited.
The scraping slowed, then the boat lurched, and everything stopped.
The captain’s voice came over the intercom.
“Welcome to Helsinki.”