Coming Back Home

Clair trotted down the stairs of one Sydney Uni's multitudinous libraries, her nose peeking over her pillar of books. Somewhere in the west, the sun was setting, bathing the distant urban skyline in a mixture of iridescent orange and smog blue. The end of another day, albeit one with a brand new assignment on manufacturing carbon nanotubes.
Her phone rang as she reached the car park. She deposited her university paraphernalia on the back seat of her Polo and fished about for the source of the buzz. She recognised the voice on the other end of the line, even though she hadn't heard in in some months now.
"You free this arvo?"
"Yeah."
"Meet you at the usual place at six?"
"Sure, see you then."
Shortest conversation she'd had all day, but that wasn't unusual. She cast a glance at her books, glaring at her from the back seat, and gave a mental shrug. Carbon nanotubes could keep. She set her proverbial sails for Manly beach.
By the time she arrived at the waterfront road, the sun had long since blazed into oblivion behind the mountains, lighting the eastern marine clouds with its final, dying tribute of light. Claire pulled up into a space between two towering seaside pines. The sights and sounds outside combined in a gentle symphony of the insomniac city and restless sea. The anonymous sidewalk meandered, snake like, along the beach and petered out somewhere between the distance and halogen lighting. The few figures who followed the path were equally faceless, but Claire knew exactly who she was looking for. It wasn't long before a familiar lanky figure appeared off to her right. He was dressed entirely in black: black boots, black jeans, black hair, black parka. He looked like he'd just stepped out of a Gothic disco, but in actual fact, he'd recently gotten off a marine research vessel called the Ariel.
He spotted the car immediately and climbed in.
"Hey, Ghost." Claire said.
His face lit up at the sound of the in-joke. An insufferable social networker, Ghost had a bad habit of messaging her without bothering to show his 'online' status. He was invariably moving around between boat and computer when he was at sea; there one minute, gone the next. A true virtual ghost.
"Hey, CC." Ghost said. (His real name was Phil)
A wry smile touched Claire's lips. "CC" dated back to highschool, and being a part of a wacky kind of love square. She had had a crush on his best friend, and he had had a crush on her best friend. Ghost was also Claire's best guy friend. It was enough to mess with anyone's mind, and, naturally, all four friends remained close well into university. They even decided to keep their old, unofficial nickname: Cupid's Serenaders.
"So, have you got your land legs back yet? You're looking a little green, you know. Don't puke all over my clean dashboard, please." Claire's voice, as usual, was coloured with irony. Ghost spent 7 out of 12 months working with a team of oceanographers as a data analyser. Last time he'd come back to land, he'd bitched bitterly about "land nausea". As was the tirelessly comic nature of their friendship, Clair had responded with a stream of seafaring clichés. They'd both been in stitches by the end of it.
"The things I've seen in the past 7 months would make your dashboard quail." Ghost shot back.
"Oh yeah, that sea mud would be a real bummer, wouldn't it? What did it do, get under your fingernails?"
"You have no idea …"
"Dayum, you guys suffer so much on that ship. How do you cope?"
"We suffer in the name of science." Ghosts voice was filled with enough melodrama to make a soap opera star proud.
"I suffer in the name of science too – check out my backseat library."
Ghost turned around, "I'll hand you that one, but I bet you'll have a hard time beating sub-zero temperatures."
"Let me guess, Antarctica?"
"Pfft, may as well have – do you know how cold the Southern Ocean can get?"
"Well, if it's cold enough to freeze your fingers, then I'd imagine it would make your job rather hard …" Claire shot her friend a cheeky grin.
They carried on in this fashion for hours. People gazed at them curiously from the sidewalk, but the pair neither knew nor cared. They didn't feel the need to move from the car, either – Ghost had brought food – and they scarcely noticed the passing time through the foggy car windows. It was some hours until they ran out of things to say. But even then Ghost stayed with Claire, not saying a word. There was no need to say anything, really. Their companionship spoke volumes through the silence.