Chapter 5
November 7, 2023 at 9:53 AM
The most difficult part of the river. — Passions are running high. — Dendritic Cell gets knocked out. — The water lock and an extreme photo. — Passing the lock. — Bad weather. — Our shelterless travelers. — The nightly flood. — Path into an unknown direction.
So there they were, approaching the most difficult part of the river. Even those, who had already sailed through it a lot of times, were feeling a certain discomfort while doing it, since said part consisted of a quite sharp turn that suddenly divided into three turbulent streams, and wild currents often played cruel tricks on the adventurers there. These currents could first pull them to the right bank, then to the left, then drag them into the center, let them rotate around their own axis and take them back, while constantly trying to let them crash into anything possible.
And to top it off, the number of big boats, small boats, ships, and anything else that was able to swim kept increasing more and more. This caused them to unavoidably get into each other's way, making the cells inside them worry, angry and also completely furious, awakening in them the irresistible need to resort to swear words. The owners of two boats, that got stuck with one another, even started a proper fight, striking each other with their oars and trying to throw the opponent into the water.
Our four gentlemen didn't get off scot-free either, getting stuck with a neighboring boat. Dendritic Cell skillfully dodged an attack with an oar, but the T-Killer got hit on the head with a mast by a charming young lady, who didn't even seem capable of such an aggression. And while doing that, she was also letting out expressions that could scare anyone.
The well-directed blow to the back of his head made the T-Killer collapse to the bottom of the boat, burying Dendritic Cell under his body. The Dendrocyte, who could hardly believe his luck, hugged him and even wanted to kiss, sorry, provide him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But before he could do that, the T-Killer came back to his senses and punched him so hard that the boat beneath them started to creak pitifully. The scared B cells hugged each other, and then the B Lymphocyte started screeching into the T-Killer's ear that he would sink them for sure, almost getting a slap in the face for that from the latter. In the meantime, Memory Cell bent down to Dendritic Cell and tried to bring him around.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"This is the power of love," murmured the Dendrocyte, rolled his eyes towards his nose and lost consciousness with a happy smile on his face.
Having made an improvisational compress out of a wet cloth and somehow managed to calm down his companions, Memory Cell sat down in front of the rudder and ordered the others to row hard without getting distracted by anything. Like that, they neatly passed half of the strung up cells and approached the lock, in front of which, despite the precipitous coasts from both sides, a big mooring area for boats was situated. There they could leave the boat, rest a bit and finally take care of the knocked out Dendritic Cell. Memory Cell sincerely hoped that the latter didn't suffer a nucleus concussion.
* * *
When Dendritic Cell came to his senses, it was already starting to get late. But he absolutely didn't want to get up from the bench his companions had laid him on, and tried to hint at the T-Killer with all his might that he needed a kiss from him in order to wake up. But the latter didn't get it, so our poor Dendritic Cell didn't have another choice but to get up by himself. The B cells brought something to eat and a few bottles of vitamin juice from the boat, and the four of them started their meal. The food seemed damp and unappetizing, and their cheese sandwiches even tasted somehow sour and moldy. But as luck would have it, the four cells, who were unsatisfied with their early dinner, spotted a whole procession of diligent ladies selling different kinds of stuff on the coast. From one of them, they bought great cherry pies and ate a couple of them right then and there, agreeing that this was much better than these cheese sandwiches.
Now they had to decide quickly: should they pass the lock now, or go find a place to sleep and do it tomorrow? In the end, they chose the first option, to depart immediately. To be honest, they weren't really sure if they would still find a free hotel in that vena cava that late in the evening, but in the worst case they could always sleep in their boat.
A waiting line had already formed near the lock, or more precisely, various waiting lines, going from one coast to the other in the shape of a fan. A bridge was located over the lock, which was crowded with cells, who were waving their hands, seeing off their friends or simply watching. Some of them were taking photos. Seeing that, the Dendrocyte couldn't take it any longer and decided to shoot some great ones himself. Obviously, it was not the best idea to leave the boat right before the lock's opening, but he took the risk, jumped out and ran up the stairs guiding to the bridge.
"Hey!" he shouted from above. "Smile, guys!"
And so, as if on command, everyone wanting and not really wanting to appear in the picture, started to perk themselves up and take up the most curious poses ever that they believed to be suitable for that occasion. The B Lymphocyte climbed on the boat's nose and stroke such a heroic pose that the others almost burst out laughing. Memory Cell and the T-Killer, for their part, just arranged their hair. But before the shutter of Dendritic Cell's camera could make a clicking sound, everyone in the other boats suddenly started screaming:
"Your nose! Look at your nose!"
When our adventurers realized that the cells were yelling at them, the B Lymphocyte carefully started touching his nose, while Memory Cell and the T-Killer were looking at each other with confused faces. In the meantime, Dendritic Cell got accidentally shoved by someone and nearly fell from the bridge together with his camera. In the next moment, the boat, whose nose had got stuck under the woodwork of the lock, dangerously tilted up from the incoming water rising all around it. Memory Cell, who had been able to perfectly control himself during basically their whole trip, suddenly started panicking and clutching his head. However, the T-Killer quickly helped him with a slight, friendly slap on the back of his head and handed him one of the oars, taking the second one himself. After a vigorous blow against the side of the lock, the boat got released and swung to such a point that it sent all of them sprawling on their backs. And in addiction to that, the B Lymphocyte came flying from the nose of the boat, directly landing on top of the other two, creating a living pyramid. But, oh no, due to the unfortunate shove, Dendritic Cell couldn't manage to press the shutter button in time and shot a photo that showed only his companions' feet. After that, he didn't have any more time left and hurried back, using a small hanging stage, belonging to the platelets, who were doing a few minor repairs on one side of the bridge. With its help, he almost reached the water and jumped down into the boat, nearly making his friends, who only now had managed to get up, fall once again.
* * *
The further passing through the lock went without any more incidents. Long processions of boats came out surprisingly organized on the other side and peacefully separated, giving others enough room to maneuver. The river got wider and calmer. But unfortunately, it wasn't possible to appreciate the benefits of this new area, as it started to get dark pretty quickly after entering the vein and then the weather also suddenly got worse, making the once imperturbably calm river wilder and wilder. The sky was covered by dense storm clouds that swallowed the last bit of light. It wasn't raining yet, but the atmosphere turned gloomy. Unlike the lymphatic vessels, the river's current was more powerful here, and the water had a consistency similar to thick soup. Rowing was hard at first, and the boat got constantly swayed and moved from the path. After a mere half an hour, our cellular adventurers started feeling their exhaustion, wanting to just drop everything and go rest, but they didn't know where to do that yet. Having moved closer to the left bank and gotten the boat to finally sail straight, they started looking for a place to spend the night. And soon they spotted a residential area in front of them, with hotels.
As expected, all the hotels along the coast of the vena cava were full to the brim. Even asking if they could settle down in some corner of the shed at least didn't get them anything but a sad head shaking from the landlords, who showed them that even the sheds and storerooms were completely full of guests. Pha, hotels! Not even the mooring area had a free place. After having been on their feet until the night, the tired travelers decided to just sleep in their boat. They just needed to fit some hoops over the boat, stretch the canvas over them and tightly wrap themselves into blankets. However, that seemingly simple action turned out to be far more complicated than they thought. And in addiction they didn't manage to get a place at the illuminated mooring area, and didn't have any choice but to somehow find room for themselves at the darkest and most remote place of them all, where they could barely fasten the boat properly. They also didn't find anything to make fire with, and the B Lymphocyte's beloved flashlight suddenly decided that today was the perfect day to stop working. So they had to install the arched hoops in complete darkness by touch. Of course, that didn't go exactly as planned: first, the arches wouldn't fit into the sockets, then were hammered in by force with the T-Killer's fists, then Memory Cell remembered that they had to be installed in a completely different way, so in other words, it turned out that those were the wrong hoops for these sockets. The B Lymphocyte offered to just let them be, since they were already in, but then the canvas absolutely didn't want to fit over them, and thus, they had to pull them out and start again. But the problem was that they wouldn't come out. In the end, the T-Killer managed to get them out, with such force that they almost lost the hoops, the sockets, and parts of the boat's sides.
Their struggle with the construction went on till long after midnight. Just as the next morning was already approaching, the four of them could finally lie down in the boat, covered by the improvisational roof, their blankets, and also their clothes. As they were lying in their not very comfortable resting place, it started raining. The sound of its pattering was pleasantly calming, and the completely exhausted cells fell asleep. They didn't notice that the rain got more intense, neither how agitated the river became, starting to flood the banks, nor how the boat's rope got unfastened and, slowly swaying, began drifting away farther and farther...
Accompanied by the rain's violent pattering on the canvas, Dendritic Cell was dreaming the entire night about how the landlady from the inn they had fled without properly doing their part to pay for their stay, had found them and angrily wanted to know what they had done to two of her kettles, a porcelain one for brewing tea and another made out of tin for boiling water, and four cups. He swore to her that they had left everything in front of the door, but she didn't believe it and threatened to shake her belongings out, even if she had to shake him by his legs.
The B Lymphocyte's dream wasn't much better: he dreamed about being caught by a giant, who sat down on him, almost crushing him. But in reality, it were only Memory Cell and the T-Killer, who had rolled on top of him in their sleep.
Memory Cell dreamed that he was drowning in a wild stream and that the only way out was a thin twig he had to grab at every cost. He struggled for a long time to reach it and after finally managing to, clang to it with such desperation, that the B Lymphocyte, whose elbow got painfully grabbed by him in his sleep, started dreaming that the giant decided to rip out all of his limbs, starting with his arm. And this got only worse when that giant stretched out his huge hand and also grabbed his leg, which was in reality done by the T-Killer, who was dreaming about a good fight against a fierce antigen. The antigen got nearly beaten, but then its companions suddenly took over the whole organism and created a real apocalypse.
All four of them woke up, not only drenched in cold sweat, but also up to their ears in river water. While they were sleeping, the boat got completely filled with it. The cells immediately jumped to their feet and, barely understanding what was actually going on, promptly started to scoop out the water, so they wouldn't sink. They didn't have the slightest clue, where they were. There was no coast in sight and none of the other boats. A dense fog floated over the river, practically covering up the entire view. After having poured off the accumulated water from the canvas and moved the latter away, so it wouldn't disturb, Dendritic Cell took out a large cooking pot and started helping his companions to get the boat dry again. First they had to take care of that little catastrophe and then try to find out, how far they had drifted off.
Until the fog would lift, they decided to lie at anchor. Why no one of them hadn't thought about doing that back then, they didn't know and couldn't give any logical answer. In reality, they were sometimes forgetting to do that or just hadn't considered it necessary to anchor the boat at least during the night, thinking that the rope was enough. The anchor was just too much work: first, it had to be thrown into the water, then pulled up again and cleaned from the mud. And you were very lucky if the anchor didn't get caught on some swimming trunk of a tree, damaged the boat's side while being pulled up and didn't fall on your foot. However, the experience collected during their rather short trip had showed them that they really needed to change their opinions regarding safety measures. Good that this time the boat hadn't drifted off without them, at least, and that the oars hadn't been left behind as well.
After the fog had lifted, our cellular adventurers started to sail into the supposed direction towards the coast. They slowly rowed, accompanied by the T-Killer reproaching all three of them to be slobs and his tirades about what the basophil he did together with them on that trip in the first place. However, he simply ignored the B Lymphocyte's comments such as "Look at your own membrane...", absolutely not willing to admit, neither to himself nor to the others, that he hadn't been less of a slob himself in that case. While listening to their languid bicker, Memory Cell was just moaning in fear of getting rheumatism from all that humidity.
And that, naturally, immediately started an interesting conversation about back pains, fevers, colds, bronchitis and pneumonia, during which the T-Killer said that it would be the peak of embarrassment for immune cells to get sick and bedridden. And like that, they sailed among the leftover fog, until finally spotting a coast. After approaching it, they noticed a warning sign saying: "You are now entering a brachial vein".
