“The
exact number of people killed is unknown because the official records
were rendered inaccurate by such factors as-------.” Encyclopedia
Britannica note on the 1912 “RMS Titanic”
calamity.
It
happened a long, long time ago. The passenger luxury ocean liner ship
sank on its voyage across a vast ocean.
At
nearly midnight in an electric storm of terrifying thunder and
lightning, the sinking lasted for more than an hour.
The
electric storm had begun before the explosion inside the ship. That
storm might very well have been the cause of the explosion that sank
the ship.
None
of the many, many investigations undertaken since then has
established a link between the foul weather at the time outside the
ship, and the explosion inside the ship.
All
of the ship had sunk out of view before the storm died down. The
thick black storm clouds remained. The night darkness under storm
clouds and the black smoke from the massive fires on the sinking
liner and there being no wind, combined to cause visibility to be
barely an arm’s length.
In
time, the slight increase in visibility length indicated the arrival
of dawn above the canopy of dark clouds. The gradual appearance of
dim light made the calm ocean surface seem to be slimy stagnant guck.
There
was little residual ship debris floating about. Among the debris, and
mostly indistinguishable from the debris, there were a few lifeboats.
With
the exception of one, all the lifeboats seemed occupied by lifeless
bodies, some slumped; some rigidly upright.
The
young adult man and woman in the exception, were sitting up, very
tired, wet, and dejected. They were alone in that boat, at opposite
ends, facing each other, gradually increasing in visibility to each
other.
On
board the ship, they had been strangers to each other, deliberately,
in the Third Class quarters lodged the deepest inside the ship.
Third
Class was the least expensive. Third Class had the fewest passengers
of the ship’s over three thousand personnel of crew and
passengers.
When
the ship sank, the Third class quarters suffered the most casualties.
That
young man and woman had seen each other on board the ship, always
from a distance; they had not spoken to each other. To others they
had spoken briefly at times; only when necessary.
While
the ship’s paid services included continual live entertainment
in public places for the other Classes, the Third Class passengers
were expected to improvise entertainments for themselves within the
spaces of Third Class. In Third Class, there was no shortage of free
entertainments of singing, playing musical instruments, dancing, and
other kinds.
In
all the chaotic rowdy happiness, the young man and woman had kept to
themselves, in their separate locations, always studiously careful to
not participate. Most of the time they had remained alone behind
closed doors inside their nearly-cramped single-bed quarters.
Anyone
in Third Class who was curious enough to notice the diligently
self-imposed isolation of those two would certainly have suspected
that those two had unpleasant secrets to hide from everybody else in
the world.
Indeed,
neither of those two could have avoided arriving at the same
suspicion of the other, had each taken time to think about the other
for longer than the brief accidental glimpses they caught of each
other, occasionally.
Had
either of them bothered enough to take the time?
Indications
from the wholesale spontaneous rowdy hilarity throughout Third Class
quarters, it was highly unlikely that anyone else in Third Class had
wondered enough to have taken the time.
When
the electric storm erupted, Third Class quarters were so deep down in
the ship, nobody in Third Class was aware of the storm. Also, when
that fatal explosion occurred deep down in the ship, the joyful
noises of festive activities had muffled the terrible imminent fatal
catastrophe from the Third Class passengers.
An
added evil fact was that none of the officials on the ship cared to
inform the occupants of Third Class of either the outside storm or
that the ship had begun to sink because of the explosion inside the
ship.
By
the time the Third Class occupants became aware that the ship was
doomed, it was too late for over ninety percent of them.
None
of the few Third Class passengers who eventually had ended up on
debris floating on the ocean in the pitch-dark night, could account
for that miracle of their survival.
The
Third Class young man and woman who ended up alone in a lifeboat
were, too, clueless about how they got there. Nonetheless, each in
their own way, sensed the beginning of relief that the deep ugly
secrets that were the reasons they had sought to flee by passage to
far away places overseas, need not be of serious concern any more.
In
the dim light of an overcast dawn, they stared at each other across
that dismal lifeboat, intuiting at a distance the beginnings of their
mutual relief.
From
a far distance came the signaling sounds of a possible rescue craft
approaching.
The
young woman decided to assure that feeling of relief in her would
increase. She carefully climbed out of the boat, and silently
maneuvered her way to the other floating objects that appeared to be
lifeboats.
The
young man saw her, but did nothing about what he saw. He was resigned
to the probability of her choosing to kill herself rather than be
rescued to be documented, and advertised to the world. He knew he,
probably, would make the same choice in the next few minutes before
that rescue craft arrived.
He
definitely would have joined her had she asked. He wished she had
asked.
She
reached three of the other lifeboats, one after the other. All the
occupants were dead. She searched the clothing of some.
She
returned to the boat where the young man was. She climbed back into
the boat; she did so without his help. He made no attempt to assist
her.
When
she was seated in the boat, the search lights from the approaching
rescue ocean liner were clearly visible, scanning the ocean surface
for survivors.
With
some difficulty, she retrieved a small hand-sized object from a
pocket in her wet clothing, and waved it to him at the other end to
catch it. She tossed it to him. He caught it.
While
she waited for him to inspect the object, she took out another object
of equally small size from one side of her wet clothing, and another
from another side of her wet clothing. She waved the one at him
before tossing it into the ocean.
He
did not inspect the object she had tossed to him; he sensed what it
was.
Awkwardly,
he took out his wallet from his wet clothing, and tossed it into the
ocean. He inserted that wallet-size object she had tossed to him,
into a pocket of his wet clothing.
A
rescue searchlight from above flooded them.
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