Seaboard Misery
I am telling you this story of my past because of the hardship it brings forth to me. I have lost my love, and I am still grieving. It has been three years to the day of the wreckage off of the coast of Nova Scotia in the Atlantic shores. She has been traveling for many months in a marvelous adventure to study foreign wildlife in Africa and Europe. For the past few weeks I have been receiving phone calls while I was out on business calls, so my secretary explains to me. One of the many phone calls placed was by my love. She wanted to inform me of her return within the next few days. She will be arriving by boat early in the morning, either on the seventeenth or the eighteen
In the early hours of the morning on the eighteenth of October, I was summoned out of my room. You ask yourself why I might leave my room from the depths of sleep, but it was for a purpose far more important than anything imaginable. A distress call has been sent out from an incoming ship. At the time, I did not think it was a call of distress, but of a notice of the incoming passengers. I rushed out of my room to greet my love when she stepped foot off of the boat’s ramp.
I have been longing for this day for such a long time. I missed her face. I missed her touch. I missed her sound. I was trembling from the anticipation of rejoining her. And, the fact that I barely slept a wink from the notice of her arrival time didn’t help matters much. That was three days ago. Oh, how I missed her sense of humor. Most of our time apart, I have been awake in the late hours of the night, just remembering her final words to me. When she set sail for Africa in late March, she called out to me, “Keep me in mind! I love you!” She hasn’t left my mind since.
As I ran out to the shipping dock down the block from my quarters, I noticed that there was trouble. A crowd of people has already packed the dock. Women and children were screaming. Men were staring in horror, motionless. I haven’t thought of looking for a boat. I instantly searched for a member of the police force. When I found an officer, he instantly pointed out to the ocean. As I slowly looked up from the policeman’s face, I realized what has been happening. I realized what caused the distress call. I realized why people were screaming.
A familiar passenger vessel was nearing. But in its way, was a fairly large group of rocks. By this time, I was the only person on the dock. Police cleared away all of the lookers, but left me there. For, my love is a passenger. I stared in horror as I witnessed people jumping from the deck of the boat, to their death. This stormy morning was to become even worse. The front of the boat plowed into the enormous rock. The sound was terrifying, an extremely loud crunch, the sort of crunch of when you step on an upright soda can.
I saw a fire erupt on the side of the boat that was struck by several large boulders. Smoke billowed out of the ship like an extremely large bonfire. Within several minutes, the boulder, which gashed my love’s return home, crumbled into the ocean. Within ten minutes, I witnessed this ship sink into the depths of the ocean. I was not crying. I am too numb for tears. I still am in utter shock. The fact that my love perished with many other people, returning to their homes, in the terrible wreckage shocks me. No other word can describe what I am feeling.
Since this time, I have not returned to my room. I have not returned to the dock. I have not returned to the city. Shortly after the incident, I moved into the states to pursue a career in advertising. Business isn’t going so well. I am thinking of taking up another profession. I feel I have decided on what is to be done in my life. I plan on taking up photography, I hear photographers make a great deal of money by selling their work to galleries. I am traveling to Africa within the next week.
By Will Bozarth
September 27, 2002
