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"You. Happier today. Something good happened?"
"Hm? Is it really that obvious?"
The usually grumpy Ishmael is practically prancing around as she hums a sea shanty she just called annoying a few days ago. The ginger woman has been smiling from ear to ear from the moment she woke up. It'd be impossible not to notice.
"No. Noticed your eyes sparkle. That's all."
Ishmael freezes up a bit. "Is that so?" She covers her blush with her even brighter red hair. "It's nothing."
In a calculated silence, Queequeg stares at her friend encouragingly, knowing Ishmael can't resist the urge to talk for long.
"It's just," Ishmael looks away, still blushing profusely, "my birthday, that's all."
The harpooner's brown eyes widen in surprise. Now it is her turn to be flustered.
“Oh? Really? H— happy birthday. Hold on. I'll get something. For you.”
“Th— there’s no need! Hearing you wishing me happy birthday is good enough!” Ishmael also stammers. She twirls her hair in her slender fingers. “Really.”
The young woman is not being untruthful. In fact, this birthday is probably the most fulfilling for her since she reached adulthood. After all, it is the first birthday she gets to spend with such a special friend. Her colleagues in the Nest had little to no reason to care about her birthday nor did she for theirs. If someone were to remember anyone’s birthday, it was used as an excuse for another drinking night — so it’d really be for the better if they forget her birthday also.
Birthday wasn’t that much of a special day for her. She still worked, she still did overtime. If it fell into a weekend, she recuperated like she always did on any other weekend. She didn’t have anyone whom she particularly wanted to spend that day with — and even if she did, she didn’t have time to anyway.
She is still technically working today, on her 24th birthday. Now, she doesn’t even have rest days; her work is even more mentally and physically taxing, yet she feels so much happier. For the first in a very long time, she marvels in the full knowledge that she was born — that she has a birthday, that is today. For the first in a very long time, she is living — because of that, she can care about others, she can love.
“Speaking of which,” Ishmael tries to switch the topic, “when is your birthday? It’s a bit odd if you think about it, right? We have grown so close and yet neither of us knew others’ birthday. Isn’t it what girls ask when first meeting each other? It was like that for me back at school, at least. I mean, it’s such a convenient question to break the ice. After this we’ll know your star sign and everything—”
“ 8.8. ”
***
**
*
Queequeg doesn’t know what she thought when she blurted that date out. Perhaps she didn’t think anything at all. The news of Ishmael’s birthday was still fresh on her mind and the date corresponding with it was just waiting on the nonexistent tip of her tongue. Now Ishmael insists that she will get Queequeg a present while Queequeg herself is too flustered and embarrassed to correct her. Besides, how would she even begin to clear this misunderstanding?
Queequeg feels guilty to trouble Ishmael with this on her birthday, but she genuinely did not intend to lie. In truth, even if she were to rewind back to the moment of her answer, she would not know which date to say — she honestly doesn’t remember. How lame of an answer is that?
Yet, it is not totally truthful of her to say she has no birthday either. Up until a year ago, she celebrated something of that nature. Her Family made such a big fuss of it every year, it would be impossible to forget the day — much to her distress.
It was technically to celebrate the day she entered the Middle, but because her birthday was unknown, the day was also considered her birthday. In her beloved Siblings’ logic, that makes the day all the more worth celebrating — worth celebrating enough to prepare a whole month in advance. No chores were done that day, unless it was something very important and sudden. The top restaurant in the area would be rented out for that day. All Little and Young Siblings in the area were obligated to attend. All guests were obligated to bring gifts to the birthday girl — gifts which she didn’t give a second glance to. A waste it all was, yet it is what the Princess of the Middle deserved.
Thinking of such things makes her nauseous. It’s only ten in the morning, and her head has not been kind to her. Unfortunately, that is also not the only one who isn’t being very kind to her.
“What do you think you are doing?”
She drops the hardtack to raise both of her hands up — as if surrendering. She is, after all, technically trespassing: this is Fleece’s territory, not hers.
“Good Wings. Are you muted? What the hell are you doing here?”
The man, so old and weak that he needs a cane to support himself, approaches her at a speed which she didn’t think he was capable of. The mighty harpooner of Pequod cowers before the ship’s frail cook — and she has a good reason for it.
“First that rascal and now you? What? Did I not feed you lot enough? Yes or no? Speak up! Or are you too starved to even talk?”
“N— No…Just. Trying to bake—”
“Oh? So now my kitchen is your house now? You can come and go as you please? Yeah, you might as well piss in my stove now. Go on!” The man suddenly throws the rolling pin in his hand-reach at her. “Smash everything! You see that stack of hardtacks? Smash it! Go on!?”
Queequeg just feels lucky that there isn’t a knife in the old man’s reach. She wouldn’t have enjoyed hearing that man telling her to stab him very much. The very awkward thing, however, is that she probably does need to smash hardtack right now.
“Don’t mean to. Disrespect. Serious.” She tries her best to sound innocent. “Today. A friend’s birthday. So. Bake a cake.”
“What? Do you think this is your daddy’s 5 stars cruise or what? A cake? Cake? Do you think you can do whatever you want because you are the Captain’s favourite piece of shield? Seriously? Bake a cake? On a Whaling ship? Do you hear yourself, Princess?”
Fleece probably doesn’t intend to hurt Queequeg in that way, but in that blind raving — he touches a nerve. Queequeg, with gritted teeth, with swallowed wrath, wordlessly makes her way out — yet he blocks her way.
“Would Plum Duff do?” He asks, in a significantly lower voice than in his previous screeching but still very much sullen.
“Plum Duff?”
“Good Wings above!” The old man throws his hands in the air. “Do you literally know anything at all?”
***
She got to stay inside the kitchen for a total of half an hour before getting unceremoniously kicked out, that includes the duration of her being yelled at by the cook. In the end, Fleece kicked her out because everything she did was an eyesore . Queequeg isn’t that experienced in cooking, but surely she couldn’t have been that bad.
Although he did help her at the end (and promised to deliver her the plum duff), she can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. The cake is supposed to be her birthday present to Ishmael, having someone to bake it for her feels like defeating the point. Deep in thought, she doesn’t even notice when that tiny hand tugs on her clothes.
“ Ah…hah . Pip?”
She absentmindedly calls his name, to which the child shushes her. If it had been anyone other than her, the boy would have probably been spanked now. Queequeg thinks in her own amusement, but won’t reprimand the child in any capacity.
“Don’t tell anyone.” He forces in her palm half a handful of…crystalised tablets? “For you.”
Looking at her dumbfounded expression, Pip feels compelled to add in whispers. “It’s sugar candies.”
“…Got those. Where?”
“In Fleece’s kitchen.” The boy answers under his whispers, but he looks almost proud. “You know, Queequeg, Pip had to pretend to find canned sardines as a decoy…He spanked me, but he didn’t suspect a thing!”
She would scold him…if she isn’t using all her mental strength to hold back her laughter right now. Thus, other than giving him a few disapproving headshakes — which she’s sure he doesn’t take even a bit seriously — she does nothing other than to send him on his merry way. Unlike her, the prized harpooner, who would be most busy during the hunts, Pip still has some other duties in these more tranquil days.
The child runs off in his youthful, optimistic energy, yelling back a single thing.
“Happy birthday!”
Wait. MY birthday?
***
A birthday celebration needs a cake, some other sweets, and presents. She technically has procured two among the three items. Still, she doesn’t know why she would so rigidly think of them as compulsory for a birthday party. After all, although her birthdays as organised by her Family did have a lot of sweet desserts and presents, cakes weren’t a constant. Great Sister much preferred treats like ice-creams, even during winter.
She takes a moment to think about this. She takes a moment to think about Ishmael too. The woman is a Nest-born, and up until last year she was still working as a Feather. In secret, Queequeg thought that must have been really nice — although of course she has never voiced it out loud. Cakes also sound really nice, but they must not be the cakes that she sometimes had during those celebrations; sweets also sound really nice, but they must not be the sweets that she had during those celebrations; and presents also sound really nice, but they must not be the presents that she received during those celebrations. After all, the birthday cakes Nest people have are all in three cylinder layers, with the upper layer being smaller than the one it is on top of. After all, the sweets Nest people have are all fresh and not at all came from plastic packs. After all, the presents Nest people have are all inside little boxes wrapped in coloured papers and tied in bright red or pink ribbons.
Wait . Why does she think that? She has never been inside a Nest (as much as she tried to enter). She didn’t meet any Nest-born who provided her that account. She only…
She only had a picture book when she was a child.
…There was a time when she tried to imagine a lavish party celebrating her birth. Yet when she finally got it, it became something grotesque and vacant in equal measure. Ishmael doesn’t deserve such a thing, Queequeg decides. She deserves the birthday of dreams, or at least a birthday that resembles that dream the most.
However, her struggle to find her beloved friend a present in the middle of the ocean only ten folds as the misunderstanding spreads like fire through the ship. The only person left who hasn’t wasted her time by wishing her a happy birthday, or worse, drags her to drink with them for the occasion is probably Captain Ahab. By night, the spot for the present is still vacant.
***
She’d have to make do like this. Queequeg sighs as she pushes the door with the make-shift cake and a bowl of sugar candies. The Plum Duff looks far less appealing than she thought it would be. It was small and boiled, not baked. Perhaps baking just isn’t possible on a ship. Maybe that’s why Fleece was so mad at her in the morning.
Ishmael, at that point, is already slumped on her bed. A Nest-born like her surely can’t just get used to such hard labour on the ship after less than a year.
“Queequeg?” The ginger woman forces herself to sit up as soon as she hears the door creaking. “Can you come here? I’m so tired…”
It is what Queequeg intends to do anyway, but she still feels a twinge of anxiety approaching Ishmael with the treats in her hands. She places the food on the bed, right next to Ishmael, and sits down on the floor.
Ishmael smiles through her exhaustion seeing her friend's timid gesture. She asks a question she already knows the answer to in the fatigued-tempered awkwardness.
“What's these?”
“Happy birthday.”
“I already told you that you didn't have to.” Ishmael mutters, playfully hitting her dearest friend's shoulders. “I mean,” she grows more solemn, “I don’t care how many presents you got me, but you trying so hard just for me makes me so…happy.”
“Sorry. Should have done more. Presents. Decorations. The likes—”
She silences her friend with a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you.”
Ishmael speaks so softly that Queequeg can only barely catch what she said. Yet, those two simple words bring the Pequod’s most powerful harpooner to heels.
“Come on now. Today is your birthday too! You are making me feel guilty…I couldn't prepare a thing for you.”
“No! You work. A lot. Today. Besides…”
“ Besides …?”
The confession is stuck at Queequeg’s throat and refuses to go.
“These…” Queequeg stammers, still can't be honest to herself. “Not me. Sir Fleece made. Pip gave. I only…”
“Woah? What sorcery did you use to convince Old Fleece?” Ishmael asks in the most enthusiastic tone she could muster up. “Let's dig in. Yeah, I really can do with a snack today!”
“Candle…?”
“Ah…yes! Of course! How can I forget?”
In the dim light, under the flickering candlelight, Ishmael’s smile is the brightest.
…
The tiny portions of treats disappear in almost no time at all. The pair of good friends set the plate and bowl aside when Ishmael chews up the last piece of candies. Yet the sweetness lingers still on Ishmael’s lips. In half-sleepiness, Ishmael clings onto her bosom friend’s arm and rubs her hair on the said friend’s bare skin.
“I really like you.”
The gesture temporarily renders Queequeg at a loss for words. “T— thank you…?” She stammers, forgetting the correct words to use for this occasion. “I…like you too. Really.” She hastily adds.
“I'm sorry.” Ishmael suddenly mutters.
“For what?”
“For running my mouth.” She averts her eyes for half a second, before looking at her friend again, remorseful. “I blurted out that it's your birthday, just monologuing, really. But then Sir Starbuck heard it, and he asked for more. And then Pip overheard it. And before I realised, the whole ship knew! It should have been you who should have told them. It’s about you after all. You kept my secret so well too.”
That is also about what Queequeg has guessed too. It’s bad enough that the whole ship now thinks it is her birthday today — stealing Ishmael’s special day — the actual birthday girl being so apologetic about a misunderstanding that Queequeg is responsible makes her feel even worse. Queequeg doesn’t think she can take it anymore.
“I…sorry.”
“For what?” Ishmael tilts her head in confusion. She looks adorable like this, but it doesn’t help Queequeg.
“I’ll come clean.” Queequeg slumps down with the weight of her guilt. “Today. Not actually. My birthday.”
“O— oh?”
“Didn’t mean to! Honest. I panicked.”
“Don’t worry!” Ishmael sounds even more frantic than Queequeg. “I believe you! But then…when is your birthday?”
To Ishmael’s surprise, Queequeg only becomes more flustered after this. “Don’t know. Don’t remember. Sorry.”
Even as Queequeg is growing increasingly distressed, the situation clears itself up a bit more tidily for Ishmael. “I see…It’s fine, Queequeg. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
That only makes Queequeg more bashful.
“But…you should have a birthday, I think.”
“…Why?”
“Because I want you to have one.” Ishmael speaks so plainly — she makes it sounds like common sense.
“But I don’t. Remember.”
“Why does it matter?” The young sailor sighs. “ Birthdays , anniversaries , holidays . They are all just excuses to celebrate, aren’t they? There is nothing special about the 8th of August. I was born. Big deal. People were born in the other 364 days too, and it’s not like every day in the calendar is special either…Yet you have done so much for me today. Not fair if you don’t have that. Yeah, so, pick a birthday for yourself! It’s not like anyone here has any authority to contradict you.”
“Can I…do that?”
“Why not? Is there any written law anywhere that tells you you can’t pick a day to celebrate your birth?”
Ishmael makes it sound so absurd that Queequeg can’t help but laugh.
“The ship. Already thought. Today. So might as well.”
Ishmael laughs too. “Such great coincidence.” She jokes in that sincere way and is being sincere in that jokey way. “That we share a birthday.”
As they snuggle up close to each other, Ishmael forces inside her bosom friend’s palm a small glass vial of something.
“Happy birthday, Queequeg.”
“Happy birthday, Ishmael.”
*
**
* * *
Once upon a time, it was as though Queequeg’s life only started when they said it was — when they found her. It was as though Queequeg didn’t exist before she was a part of their Family — that she has no past other than the Middle. It was as though Queequeg didn’t exist apart from their Family — that she has no life other than the Middle.
Yet, she has severed all her ties to them and continues to exist regardless. It is a feeble, flickering existence, but she exists regardless. She still had been born. There was a day when she was born.
She knows which day that was now — August 8th .
Once upon a time, it was as though Ishmael didn't exist. There was, after all, nothing to prove that she did. She had no one who cared enough to remember her. She possessed nothing that is unique to herself. Her relation to human society and the world at large was so miniscule that it might as well be nothing. Even in her own eyes, her existence is so feeble that she might as well not have existed, not have been born, not have a birthday.
Yet, her heart beat again when she left landed world. She was born again. And, for the first time, she truly loves and truly is being loved. For the first time, her connection to the world is strong enough for her to behold the world and behold herself reflected in its eyes. She has never been closer to people, not in the middle of a bustling street, not inside a building full of Feathers just like her, not in a party that allegedly celebrated her birth, but here, at the edge of the earth — with her single most cherished friend holds her tight, acting as her anchor, so that she won’t drift away.
She remembers her birthday now, because that day is also so important to someone else — August 8th .
It still doesn’t matter that much, Ishmael thinks: they will die and be born again and die again. But as long as and only if they can stay by each other's side, everyday can be a birthday; everyday is worth celebrating.