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While skating away, dancing across the waters, New Jersey, a woman of joy and simple satisfaction, thinks of her time.
Back in the Eagle Union, New Jersey remembers the smell of molasses.
As a battleship, there were plenty of places she's been in over her long career. Pictures taken by her sailors, better now images captured under her own agency. Seeing the nice sceneries, colorful people, and wonderful locations - nothing beats the experience she felt when she arrived at the ranch her husband spent his youth in. And those memories, she keeps close to heart.
New Jersey keeps those memories in a pop up book at home, sitting on a bookshelf. Not forgotten, always well kept. She made sure her sisters knew where it was and had a point to occasionally remind herself. For the shelf contains all her best and brightest times, off the battlefield of course.
She remembers those moments. Opening up her pop up book, courtesy of her hard work and labor. They occupy the back pages in a place where most people don't look or bother to explore since her more outgoing displays get all the attention. No, she recalls why she made the last pages so stale, lacking the same craftsmanship of the life like pop ups.
They showed the ranch. His ranch. That home beyond the sea, the life aside the land, his place nestled in a place no Siren can reach.
New Jersey recalls the day he invited her. Earthy scent of coffee in the office, taste of sea salt upon her lips. The professional, dapper in her opinion, middle aged officer working away at his maple desk. Writing down his crucial plans to come into fruition against the growing tidal waves of war. Either for the kansen like New Jersey or to hone a mind adaptable, pliable, and ease.
It was for the same tastes and sights, she found the ranch alien to her. She knows of farms and their animal life, New Jersey’s seem plenty of rural places on their way there. Green pastures filled with overgrown trees, abandoned farmland flourish with flowers roaming. Small towns isolated from the noise of cities and the gentle caress of the wind.
All those she found at the ranch, and more. She couldn't quite recall as she remembers. The pieces drizzle like syrup on a warm morning.
The first, she remembers, is the tall silo at the fork of the road. Two paved lines leading to and away from the ranch. Still amid the movement of automobiles, the silo rusts away, but the workers remain at task. The mill functioned, it belched, with it toiled the breeze of molasses.
Molasses. Not quite sugar, not quite as sweet. The black liquid she drank and consumed is thicker, so alike to sugar she would've considered it honey.
Like her honey. Her sweet honey.
The ranch reeked of the smell. Situated downhill from the silo, the location New Jersey’s long time partner showed her never stopped exuding. It remains there, in her thoughts as the ranch flies in her thoughts.
Like shells across a sector, the pieces bunch and buckle. White picket fences surround the ranch encasing the flowing grassland. Wide open spaces for the horses to graze. Arabian, Friesians, Mustangs, and Shires. All were welcomed behind the carefully maintained gates, metal stables arrayed in sensible ways.
She had a horse there, for the short leave New Jersey spent. An American Quarter Horse, one she was allowed to pick and handle. A wild sort, Tornado was her name, for it matched the speed and swiftness New Jersey tried to reign in. Enjoying the beats of the hooves against the ground - Tornado was a great friend she kept, treating it with brushes and hay.
Brown as the dirt with hair pale under the moon's rays. Tornado was a jittery, beautiful horse, trotting to trot a day for one to play. Bringing a smile as New Jersey watched, Tornado rolled in the dirt. Loving the dryness it brings on the hot summer days
Then the molasses stops. New Jersey always frowned when the memory resurfaced. The ranch wasn't just a place for horses to stay, it was their home away.
Away from the violent rocking waves. Away the danger knocking days, as guns fire, and screams are heard. Away as women like her pound down darkened skies hoping to see the stars again. Hoping to smell the molasses.
For the horses fought a battle she could not imagine. Many were thin, gaunt upon their initial admission. A few bites back, stomping the ground against the jockey's submission. Rare few, like her Tornado, buckled and kicked, with such force that can kill any poor person.
Tornado was hurting and she hated how the horse had only skin where her left eye should be.
Her honey, the man who brought her, had told her:
“They're home now, under the silo, smelling that sweet molasses.”
She remembers how those words felt hollow when the molasses stopped smelling one day.
Rain. Only can the misty clouds banish the sweet aroma. New Jersey woke up, to feed, to care, to see Tornado on her way out. As her time was short at the ranch, because war will call her again. And it would not stop as Tornado’s stall was astray.
She was gone. Her harness hung, her saddle empty. New Jersey knew what had happened and ran to the field where the horse once played.
It was the only day honey tasted bitter, and the only time she avoided the scent of coffee. Strong on the Commander’s breath, because it was the day his smell was laced with gunpowder. One she knew it didn't come from a naval battery.
Tornado was hurting. New Jersey knew, it was a matter of time before the horse's body failed.
Worms.
Tornado was weak, New Jersey knew by how much it limped. Despite all the love she showered the American Quarter Horse. Tornado was losing a war she could only do so much to win.
Even then. New Jersey would later get a whiff of the molasses.
“New Jersey?”
She looks for the voice, across the water, furrowed brows met her way.
“Oh, hey Kearsarge.” She grins, “Whatcha need?”
“Evaluating your heart rate at a slower pace. Failure to respond to previous audio stimuli. You’re in motion, yet your concentration is focused elsewhere.”
“Yeah,” New Jersey understood half the technical speech, “I’m thinking of home.”
“I assume the melancholy in your tone is implying nostalgia?” Kearsarge softens her monotone, “There are other emotions…”
“Uh-huh.” New Jersey blinks one eye closed, “A little secret place. Just for me and the Commander.”
“Understood.” Kearsarge looks around, seeing the other fleet move ahead of them, “I sense a hint of pain. Are you hurt?”
“Nope! Only thinking!”
“I see.” Kearsarge surges forward to catch up only to pause again and turn around, “Shall we continue? We may fall behind.”
“Coming!”
New Jersey follows behind her. While she may be the flagship of this current patrol, she knows what everyone knows - the location of their base. After such a long day out in the ocean and observing the lanes, for New Jersey, the harbor is a place she can call home.
For even if she’s not in the Eagle Union, she remembers the smell of molasses.
And it's as sweet as honey.