I was wounded. Horribly, horribly wounded and they didn't know. I yearned to call up to them, the people trapped in my metal frame. Of course, the humans had only given me so much power. Speech, unfortunately, was not one of them. So I scraped and screeched and groaned, and hoped for a response.
None came.
No one wanted to believe that I, the ship of dreams herself, was dying beneath their very feet. But I was. Oh, I was. I could feel the life in me leaving as the water rushed in, filling me like poison that crept slowly through my veins. It tasted of salt, my green poison, and I was reminded of the people who built me. They would come back from wherever they went, so full of whatever they had put inside themselves that they could no longer move. They would crawl up inside my bared skeleton and rely on my protection. They knew I was unlike some ships, who would shift and send them tumbling. I protected my parents, those numerous tiny men that made me who I was. The ship of dreams. I cradled them as they slept, echoed their laughter and hushed their shouts of frustration. And in return they fashioned me a body of such beautiful proportions even my sister, Olympic, could not take my place.
They kicked ice over my decks, the cold skittering only adding to my discomfort. I could feel others warm in their beds, and for them I wept. I wept for the ones deep in my holds, who would not find their way up. The ones others of their kind deemed unworthy of better attention, and so would leave inside to drown. So many families would cry themselves to sleep for nights to come. Women separated from their husbands, men from their wives and children. Some would lose their lives altogether, facing the surging waters with whatever bravery they had. And me? I would find my new home at the bottom of the sea beneath the cold water, held in the vicious stomach of the thing that once buoyed me up so lovingly.
From there, I knew not what would come of me. I had no soul, and so no hope of anything better after my demise. At least my people had some hope of a better place to come. My people. My poor, poor passengers whom I had come to love. Their every hope was my every hope, their dreams, mine. My workers were me, and I them. The men that stoked my many hearts, my coal-eating hearts that pumped heat and energy through my nerves. I knew each person by name. The rich and the poor, old and young, male and female. I knew what they looked like, what their favorite colors and foods were but, most importantly, I knew their beings. I knew what they longed to have and for what reason. I knew….know…I haven't forgotten, not a single one. I know what they had waiting for them. And I know the pain they felt at the prospect of never seeing home again. On that first day I felt their excitement. The clarity of their feeling was amazing, as nothing I had ever felt before. I was innocent, pure. A clean slate. And each person was a new pen with a different colored ink scrawling themselves along my flawless paint.
The only emotion I had known before that April day in England's cool waters were the determination, the dedication, of my parents. The hands that formed me, the words that coaxed me into being. But now….now, there was a feeling of expectation. The hope of people looking for a new home, a new future, in America. People who had never seen such a thing as me, who loved the sea as much as they loved themselves. But most of all, I felt their undying trust. That trust, that trust in me is what haunts me still to this day. I betrayed that trust in a field of ice where so many lost their lives.
And then came the pain. The intense, splitting pain as the sharp knife of the berg ripped into my side. In that moment I knew I was betraying all of those who trusted in me, in my big, solid, stable build, in the luxury that somehow equaled safety. There was so much I should I have done. I could have stopped working. I could have called a halt to my very function. But I didn't. I myself trusted in the people who pretended they had control over me. I trusted they would call a halt, that they would save me. None of us saw the iceberg. It was dark, so dark, and calm. The berg had risen like a great white mountain before us before any of us knew what it was. And then, it was too late.
The life was sapping out of me when they first began to realize something was wrong. I had already locked the doors that should have kept me safe. But the poison was too much for them. Up and over the green foam went, flooding one after the other of my supposedly water tight intestines. I realized there was no way I could make it. The powerful feeling of my keel splitting the water, my glory of playing with the fish in the glowing sunlight, was gone. I was terrified and in pain. And I was slipping.
I felt myself slow, felt my energy give way. One by one they began lowering my people in lifeboats to the black water. Too few, too few! They didn't think they were going to die. They didn't think it possible. I pressed all my energy into conveying my message to those I could. Smith, Andews, Ismay. Finally, it clicked into place. Two hours, they said. And my job was done. Now, if only I could keep alive long enough for more to flee. I tried. Oh! How I tried! And I wished I could do more. Wished I could give them safe passage to America. There were no promises I could make that would be kept.
So the true fight began. The fight to stay awake, to resist the magnetic pull of the ocean, until my poor people could at least make an attempt at survival. The water was leading me down, making me sleepy with its weight and salt. It dragged me forward and I felt my stern sink, imbedding itself in the rushing blue. The battle was a losing one, and yet I had to fight it until my dying moment. No matter the consequence, no matter the pain. My pain would be miniscule compared to theirs.
More boats were released. Flares were fired one, two, three, four…and still the water loaded me down and forward. So heavy was it that I felt my other end lift into the cold night air, bleeding sea water. I groaned, screaming my pain. My lights went out, and then the most excruciating pain of my existence. Vertical in the water, all the water rushing forward, my back end straight up and then a screeching, screaming, wracking pain as I split in half. Down crashed my bow for only a moment as my stern sank like a marble into the depths. Up my bow went again, perfectly vertical until the last ties severed and down plunged my front half. I was split perfectly in half, trailing nerves and innards as I went down, spilling the debris of human life behind me.
As one part of me hurtled to the ocean's floor, the other bobbed like the corks of their champagne bottles. Then that too went down. There were screams that melded with mine as I collapsed, molding myself to the pattern of the ocean floor. One, then two. Two parts that were once one glorious whole. I was gone. Gone forever and, I thought, dead.
I was wrong.
They blazed my name in a fashion to rival the fanfare of my building. My people told my story for me, with their tears and with their words. And still they heralded me as the ship of dreams. I was still renowned for my beauty, for my exquisite design. For being the most luxurious ship ever built.
The years passed. Others ships came that surpassed me in size and in beauty, in safety and luxury. And still I overpowered them with my fame. Still my people trumpeted my name. Their children and others, the people who cried for me though they did not know me. Who mourned my passing though they knew none of me. They wrote of me, they sang of me, spoke of me and remembered me. Their builders duplicated my grandeur in museums and memorials. And some of my people returned. I sensed them in the water above me, felt their melancholy, their memories. Some came in giant metal beetles that submerged themselves in the water and prodded me. I was a new creature, now. A haunting old hag instead of a beautiful young lady. But still, they said, there was beauty in me. In my mystery and my sadness. They still marveled. They still took pictures.
They still talked, they still wrote.
And so I did not die. I lived on, and I saw all. I saw the earth through the eyes of my survivors and their descendants, in those who wrote and read of me, in those who re-enacted my life. I saw their culture change, I saw their memories fade. I wept when they did, when they died I felt another piece of my heart wrench in two. Yet I still smiled with them as well. Births, weddings, Christmases and Hanukahs. I felt their joy.
I live still today. Still I live. And forever shall I continue to, even through their wars and their conflicts, their arguments and doubts. A constant reminder, a never-ending memory. Even when this lichen wears through my metal bones, and all the debris of my humans, living and dead is gone, I will live on. It is my gift and my curse. To be without truly being, and to live without truly being alive.