Unsinkable

Much like anyone aboard, I was new, free, on my voyage across the Atlantic. The ship of dreams, they said. Indestructible, they preened. Unsinkable, they jinxed.

Perhaps it was fated, or perhaps it was all the wrong things at once. Maybe several souls were to blame, maybe it was a blameless crime.

But one thing was for sure -- I slipped into the cold, still water, amongst all the chaos, and while everyone looked out for themselves and their families, there was no one to look out for me. I was a byproduct, an aftermath, an accessory to a tragedy.

The fated journey started with a warm, soft sun, giving its permission, its good omen. Get out there, set sail, there is so much to see. Waving, smiling faces above and below. The people were hopeful, the air was hopeful. I was hopeful.

This journey meant new beginnings, starting over, reuniting. It meant love and joy and luxury and relief. It meant jobs and family and new lands and familiar faces. Each and every passenger had their own story, written on paper that had seen better days, folded and tucked in their hearts, waiting to write this unfurling passage onto the faded lines, starting a new chapter, perhaps even a new book, altogether. I had my story, too, but theirs carried more weight, stood the test of more time. I could feel them all.

Several days passed in beauty and chaos, open sea, distant notes of a quartet from the decks, meals and dancing, secrets kept and secrets revealed. Quiet nights of lovers in staterooms, children rocked to sleep in bunks, hymns in church ringing, dishes clanking as they were cleaned and polished. It felt like a bubble, within which nothing could be harmed, nothing was too big to fix. Nothing bad could happen on the unsinkable Titanic.

And then I hit. The ice was harsh, sudden. A shock to my systems. They tried. I felt them try. I heard the shouts, felt the urgency, felt the intense pull of attempting to avoid disaster. Myself being steered sharply, begging me to face away. I could not, I could not look away. I was not destroyed by a lack of trying. I was destroyed despite their frantic attempts.

The news traveled much like my eventual descent occurred. Slowly. Getting faster and faster, slipping and slipping. The crew knew, the third class saw water seeping through my pristine halls, then second class, and eventually first, who treated the situation with as much urgency as a spilled glass of Cabernet. Their feet mosied through my rooms, dragged across my carpet, exhausted at the thought of abandoning the comfort of their luxury.

As I collapsed down, head first, suffocating, drowning, the events began to unfold quickly. Intensity rose, panic set in. People were pulling out their stories, desperately trying to scribble in a new path. Their story wasn't meant to end this way, not here on the Ship of Dreams, failing them, sinking them. My labored submerging took some hours but felt to me like days. The pounding of running on my wooden decks, weight shifting off of me as lifeboats were released, last-ditch efforts to live. It was the slowest, most deliberate pain.

The moment that the pressure built, when it reached its peak and I could no longer be whole, I split in two. I felt the cracking, then the pulling of my innards, grasping desperately to keep myself together. To keep the semblance of a strong ship. To have success in my one responsibility. To be Unsinkable.

What was even worse was the weight I still felt. There were still people aboard. Why were there still people aboard? My unshakable hull was in two pieces and I still held souls. I could no longer save them in my sorry shape -- I knew I would not stay afloat much longer, no matter what they said could not happen to me, to my passengers. Who would save them? They came aboard to be saved, to find something new, whatever that new thing may have been.

As the black water weighed me down, beckoned me deeper, took me away against my will, I could hear the screams, muffled and watery above me. I slipped further and further, no longer able to see in the darkness, growing colder. The surface was now unreachable to me. I was torn in two. My brief time as Titanic had come to an end.

They loved me until they hated me. I was a grand ship until I sank. How dare the Unsinkable Titanic sink? A no-good ship. A failure. Headlines would turn on me. I would become a mockery. A lesson learned. A cemetery for too many.

I lay now in my grave, at the bottom of the sea, withering away, with only memories and decaying shells of once beautiful artifacts. Hauntings of music and chatter and liveliness and hope. They give me a glimmer of what once was, but none of it is here with me anymore. I'm down here alone with the reminders and souls of the passengers I could not save, the passengers I failed. Once a celebrity, a means to new life, a name no one could stop saying, now a reminder of tragedy and what could have been for so many. I fade every day in the ocean I was made for, the ocean that betrayed me.