Shipwreck
Day Six of A Dozen Days of Magical Realism
Ships are magical beings in and of themselves, aren’t they? Even little boats retain some of that sorcery, that imagery that resonates internally like a silent bell. Who can forget Romola floating out to sea, journeying deep into her own subconscious? And I’ve mentioned elsewhere how Mr. Midshipman Hornblower put me on the deck like nothing else I’ve ever read. Just to round it off, how about Wyvern, by A.A. Attanasio? That’s a magical ship book, too. Ready to set sail?
Shipwreck
The storm that brought it forth was violent, the worst he had ever seen. Glued to the window, he had regarded the prostrate trees, listened in rapture to the screaming of the gale. He woke with the light and leaped from his bed, filled his pockets with sundries and his mouth with a sandwich, and shot through the door before his father poured a cup of coffee.
The beach smelled different—not the salty scent of sunshine, nor the pungent rot of muggy mornings—but fresh and mineral, clean and younger. The sand itself was strewn with chaos, a far different terrain from yesterday, when it sloped gently into the ocean. Now it rose and buckled like the sea itself, and perched on top of a wave of sand and detritus sat the most glorious adventure the boy had ever seen.
She was forty feet from stem to stern, her mast snapped and hung with decayed black tatters. Whatever name she had borne was long gone; her wood was weathered, wilted with decades. Her hull, however, was intact. Heart thumping, the boy scrambled up the storm dune and hoisted himself onto her slanted deck, ignoring the splinters that pierced his palms.
The cabin door was stuck at first, but glory! After only a few tries, it opened…
The cupboards of the wood paneled interior were inlaid with accents of emerald enamel and gilded geometry; a convertible sofa stretched along the side, cushioned in black and white chevrons and concentric circles. In the tiny galley perched a coal stove and an ice box enameled in burgundy and silver; on the top burner, a wisp of steam curled from a copper tea kettle. A trumpet riff whispered up through the deep and blasted into Ella and Louis: Stars shining bright above you…
He sniffed, the fruity spice of bergamot competing with the tang of cigarette, and moved deeper into the cabin. Above the sofa hung a fantastic sunburst mirror, and the face that looked back was older, glossy blonde hair slicked under a cream straw hat, elegant and desirable. When he opened his mouth, the lips below the thin mustache echoed his delight. He raised his hand to touch, to move through, the glass.
“…wait, I said! Dangerous! If your mother knew she would kill me, or at least take custody…”
The face in the mirror melted; the jazz and lacquer dissolved into rotted wood and rusted metal as the mature and responsible older man crushed his son’s every dream.
Your turn! Post your story in the comments below. Check the party invitation if you’re new and don’t know what’s going on!
OK, this is a bit long, but I've watched too many diving disaster documentaries to resist!
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The S.S. Donna Pax was the deadliest shipwreck in the area. Not from the initial sinking, though that was terrible in itself - a passenger ship full to the brim, lost with all aboard. No, the Donna Pax was notorious for continuing to take lives from the moment it floundered onward.
It began with the very day after the wreck. Rescue divers had been called in, hoping to find someone alive in an air pocket. They could even hear the faint sounds of desperate banging which they followed through the murky waters. But none alive were found and three divers lost their lives before the search was called off. The bodies would remain in their tomb. Salvagers were the next to fall to the wreck. The Donna Pax was a prize, known to have carried a wealth of gold along with her passengers. But then the rigging collapsed onto a worker, divers were crushed by shifting metal, and an unseen oil leak caught fire and nearly blew up the salvage ship. The Donna Pax was deemed unsalvageable and left to rot.
That did not stop the recreation divers. The lure of a haunted ship and missing gold was too much for many, and the death toll rose. The last divers to reach the wreck were Chuck Peterson and Dave Meador, the last before the government stepped in.
Exploration was the goal, mapping not treasure. Chuck entered first, followed by Dave, making sure to attach guide lines along their path. For all the superstition, it was an easy dive - halls less cramped than many of their previous experiences. Chuck carried the bigger light and Dave the line knife.
It was supposed to be a limited penetration dive, so when Chuck began heading further into the wreck, Dave began feeling uneasy. When Chuck's swimming became more erratic, Dave tugged on the buddy line, trying to get Chuck's attention so he could ask what was going on, so he could see if Chuck was experiencing disorientation. Chuck kept moving forward and Dave had to maneuver to keep the lines from getting tangled.
Suddenly, Chuck stopped and thrust his hand into a small hole in a sheet of plexiglass. Starting to get disoriented himself, Dave couldn't be sure where they even were. But Chuck had grabbed something and was trying to pull it out, to no avail as the hole was too small for his fist, for what he seemed desperate to take. Dave struggled to see what he was holding, but all he could tell was that it was something sparkling. Confused, Dave wrote on the underwater slate to ask what was going on, but Chuck would not even turn his head to look at Dave, so intent was he on his prize.
Dave began tugging on his friend's arm, frantically enough that it should have shaken Chuck. It did not. The light on Chuck's lamp began flickering, then went out entirely, leaving only Dave's helmet light for illumination. Groaning creaked through the wreck, a sign Dave knew meant no good. They needed to get out. They needed to get out now. It was as if a voice screamed urgency into Dave's brain and he began trying to pull Chuck's hand out of the hole, but his friend refused to release his hold.
By then Dave was hearing screaming, wailing and he had no time. He took the line knife and rammed it into the back of Chuck's hand, the impact forcing it to spasm and release, allowing Dave to pull his friend away. Dave grabbed him in a lifeguard carry and began a desperate swim out of the creaking halls as Chuck struggled. Reaching the exit, Dave didn't have a free hand to grab the reserve tanks that awaited them. They would have to decompress too early, but between Chuck's mindless struggles and his bleeding hand, Dave would have to risk decompression sickness for them both.
As he swum away, Dave continued to hear groaning and screaming, felt phantom hands on his fins tugging him backwards. He kicked and prayed and only the sight of their boat's shadow returned his heartbeat to somewhat normal, even as his joints began aching and his head grew dizzy. He remembered little after that - of being pulled from the water, of the race to the hospital, the recompression chamber. He only remembered begging to be taken away from the Donna Pax, to never return.
The government heeded his words, heeded the blood and death already spent. The site was buried beneath a dome of concrete, to prevent any further incursions. And so the Donna Pax rested.