Where I live, it is currently 4:51 pm as I am typing, and will probably be 5:00 or well after when I am ready to hit the publish button and put it out there for you all to see. April 14th, 2013, at five in the afternoon, just another Sunday evening in the United States. Somewhere in the Northern Atlantic Ocean, in about forty minutes, the most dramatic and horrific shipwreck will occur, bringing down the creation of the century and changing the rest of maritime transactions forever. That is, a hundred and one years ago.
I became interested in Titanic a little over a year ago, when I played in the pit orchestra for a local musical. The pure disaster, the terror that surged through the thousands of passengers that night, echoed in my own heart, drawing me closer with each terrible truth. There's something about the fate, the pain, and the impact that intrigues me. Everybody on that ship had a life, and a story behind that life. Maybe they were traveling to America to seek a new life, after living on grass and cow blood for years. Maybe they were war veterans going overseas for the last time, or a young couple on their honeymoon. The class system was so extravagant, the glamour both disgusting and fascinating.
I spent the last few days, starting on Saturday, at my friend/neighbor's house, with her family for their annual Titanic dinner. Her own family sailed around the Pacific for a few years, and her dad has a cookbook of the last supper on the Titanic, which was served on Sunday, April 14th, 1912. Since they had family coming from out of town, we had the dinner on Saturday-her immediate family, three other relatives, and me, so eight in total. This has been my dream for a year now, to do something memorable with people who actually care, to feel like I really spent enough time caring for the souls that perished. The eight-course meal was fantastic, with oysters, salad, soup, duck, sorbet, wild rice, salmon, and potatoes just a few examples among the completely homemade food that was served on this legendary ship over a century ago. I brought along my books on Titanic, and bored everyone with random facts, and my violin, so I could play Nearer, My God, to Thee by ear. We watched A Night to Remember, the 50's Titanic, and the '97 Titanic, not to mention several documentaries. It was certainly a night that I will remember.
I've always loved James Cameron's "Titanic", and it's the movie that will really get me to cry. When I went to see it in theaters exactly a year ago, I was sobbing uncontrollably (the big screen makes it worse), and just feeling horrible for everyone. I was sitting next to one of my older friends, and remember crying really hard when the plates fell out of the cabinet and crashed onto the floor, and especially during the Nearer, My God, to Thee scene. Granted, all of the movies were pretty good, but this one was made so spectacularly (I have a feeling it has to do with the music in the background, but that's another story) that it has the most powerful effect on me. We watched it this morning, and after feeling my heart be wrenched apart, I thought for a while about the disaster-again.
How could such a small scratch create so much damage? The iceberg seemed to barely scrape the edge of the ship, a tiny problem that one would think could be fixed easily. Everything was still intact, perfect, and poised, and calm, with a minor disruption. Yet in only two hours, the ship had foundered, and was soon just gone, vanished from sight, with hardly a trace besides the thousands of screaming souls in the night, begging for mercy from God, those in the lifeboats, their family members, or whoever else they could think of. Whenever I see or think of the water crashing through that beautiful glass dome, covering up the ornate statues, sweeping people away, and filling up everything so fast, I have to close my eyes. How could everything just be destroyed so easily and so fast, with the situation turning from a huge class separation to a desperate fight for survival, no matter how much money is involved? Every time they see the iceberg, I want to scream at the sailors, not necessarily those on screen, but the people back in time, hoping that they can hear me through the wibbly-wobblyness. Say something! Do something! HIT IT HEAD ON! PLEASE! DON'T TURN AND SCRAPE IT! NOT THIS TIME!
They don't hear me, though, and fate remains the same. Everything went wrong for them that night, and anything otherwise would create a paradox big enough to rip time apart (well, theoretically. According to time travel). I don't even believe in God, and I don't blame it on anyone in particular. But I'll still keep them in my memories, the victims and the survivors. Godspeed, my lonely angels (don't get mad at me because I keep on quoting other things, please).
Also, I neglected to mention earlier that in the middle of this I only got about four hours of sleep (because my friend and I stayed up on the computer). I was trying to make this as heartfelt as possible, but if something makes absolutely no sense, it's because I can't think straight. That's also why it took me so bloody long to finish this and no there's only five minutes until impact. Five minutes, guys.
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