Chapter 6: Of tenants and landlords.

Disclaimer: I do not own James Cameron's "Titanic" nor Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Antichrist". I don't even like the last one, but I've always wanted to write a nihilist character. And sorry for being evil and not updating (sad face).

There were eleven people in Mrs. Rogers' hotel that night, but only eight of them were able to sleep. Now that it's dark, let us pause to analyze them. Some of them might be important later; the reader must decide who.

There was the Appleton family, consisting of a father, mother and two teenage daughters. As Mrs. Rogers knew, they had been kicked out of their previous home for not paying the rent on time, and Mr. John Appleton currently struggled to find a permanent job, which was, for some reason, a difficult task. Meanwhile, his two daughters were educated by their mother until they could send them to school again. It was a clan with unremarkable customs, not including the lessons that Mrs. Appleton gave her daughters, in a voice so loud that it could be heard in the lobby, and which used to annoy the landlady.

"'What is good?'" asked the mother, with the voice of a military sergeant.

"'Anything-that-increases-our-sense-of-power, the-will-for-power, power-itself-in-man.'" the daughters answered.

"'What is bad?'"

"'Anything-that-originates-in-weakness.'"

"Very good! You've memorized it. Now, what's the most important lesson that this book teaches?"

"God is dead!"

Quite often, Ms. Rogers would sing to block out the sound of such words, which attacked her faith like a sword attacks an enemy's bare chest.

There was Mr. Young, a man who always wore nice but wrinkled three-piece suits, had a three-day stubble and a marked penchant for strong black coffee. He was a writer, or harbored wishes of being so, and he spent almost every night awake, writing short stories to sell them to newspapers and avoid starvation. The quality of his writing could be questioned, but he was a man of good character and never gave Mrs. Rogers any kind of trouble. Maybe if she knew that some parts of his writings were read aloud several times a week at a tavern in the Bowery, and much admired by avoidable people for their ... umh, "passionate style", maybe she wouldn't appreciate him as much as she did.

There was also Mr. Pickett. About this man's personality, it can only be said that he was reserved. "Silent" would actually be the best word. He never talked to anyone, not even when the landlady tried to make conversation during meals, leading her to think he might be mute. He was, however, a great listener, and she used to tell him about her problems in moments when she felt tired. Perhaps the other tenants did the same, but she couldn't be sure. He had never said that led her to think that way.

Mary Rogers, wife of Andrew Rogers, had been mother of two boys, now grown and with families of their own, and currently residing in Pittsburgh. Their parents had heard that managed to make good fortune in that city and lived comfortably. Although they were naturally proud of their offspring, they were also quite resentful, since their children had never offered to help them with their business or to remember them in any way, except of course, for Christmas cards and birthday gifts that arrived a month late.

Because she had attended a hotel for most of her life, as well as because she had a remarkable intuition, Mrs. Rogers fancied herself to be a good judge of others' personalities. She had learned that Mr. Appleton did not know the meaning of the word "no" as soon as he demanded her a room, but anyone could deduce that by seeing how he persisted in his attempts to get a job, despite the fact that his reputation as a troublemaker had already spread throughout Lower Manhattan. His wife was the same. As for the daughters, Mrs. Rogers felt sorry for them; so young and already forced to memorize a doctrine that would assuredly cause problems in a world where respectable people (or those who pretended to be so) attended church from time to time.

Mr. Young lived inside his head and cups of coffee. When he arrived, looking dreamily at nowhere in particular and asking her to repeat her questions, she assumed that he was absent-minded. She spoke to him directly and clearly, put laundry where he could find it easily and constantly reminded when the rent was due. Although the latter may simply be a universal habit of landlords.

Now, let us put an end to descriptions and focus on these people.

The Appletons slept peacefully, the parents on the bed and the two girls on a couple of blankets on the floor. The youngest snored loudly.

Mr. Young was, as usual, bent over his typewriter, sipping coffee to stay awake and occasionally checking his watch. He was trying to write a "magnum opus" to publish it as a novel and earn fame and fortune, but until then the most remarkable thing about his composition was the lack of punctuation marks.

Mr. Pickett was asleep, frowning and apparently having a bad dream. At midnight he woke up, sat down to light an oil lamp, took from his briefcase a framed photograph of a beautiful woman, with a tuft of brown hair attached, and wept without producing any noise. He returned to sleep with the photograph close to his heart.

Bert Cartmell stayed awake all night, staring at the ceiling, haunted by recently lived terrifying images. He hated to admit that he was afraid of falling asleep. Every now and then he embraced his daughter as if she were a teddy bear, and whispered some prayers to calm himself.

The Dawsons hadn't given much thought to fear, but that did not stop it from hovering over them as soon as they turned off the lights. They thought, like they had throughout the trip to New York, that the presence of the other would keep nightmares away. When one is young and full of hope, one tends to have that kind of ideas. However, that night they would realize that even love is not enough to heal a certain kind of wounds.

Faces as white as paper, or chalk, with blue lips and unseeing eyes sneaked in their in their dreams. Instead of screams, they only heard a terrible silence. No one had the will or the energy to swim at all, and the only thing that prevented them from drowning were their lifebelts. A dead mother held her dead baby in her arms. The death rattles had ended a long while ago.

The sleeping youths soon began to sweat.

During the following day they would assuredly console each other, and try to forget those dreams. But both were smart enough to know that a tragedy like the one they had just gone through was not something that could be forgotten overnight.

Each one of the seven hundred people who had survived were individuals, with their lives, opinions, interests and memories, but now they knew they were irrevocably linked for life. They all suffered the same nightmare, asleep or awake.

And for a moment, all of them were equals.