“Hey Bradley, it’s that time of the year again.” A crewman mentioned to him while they stood on the dock. It was almost 11:30 pm, April 14th. “How’s she doing?” Bradley sighed and glanced over to her, she was staring out into nothingness, unable to see anything and generally unresponsive.
“She gets like this every so often. I tell her ‘hey you know you can tell me anything sweetie, I’m always here for you’ and it helps her. She just.., she just gets real quiet at times.”
“What’s she doing? Do you know?”
“Yeah, yeah I know. She’s reliving it, she relives it for about four hours. About thirty minute before it happens and until thirty minutes after she comes to rest. Everytime she’s following someone else, and she’ll tell me all about them. Sometimes she walks me around in their footsteps. They-uh, they’re very.., eerie. She usually tells me the ones that she felt die inside her, some men killed by the bulkhead door falling on them, some being electrocuted, freezing inside her, imploding people, but one really strikes me. A man so terrified of drowning rushed back to his cabin and hung himself with his bedsheets from the stairs.”
“So, how many has she told you?”
“About fifty or sixty. Some of them reoccur.”
“Is there a, a pattern to them? Are they regular?”
“Nope just, outta the blue. I’ve been eating dinner with her and I’ve been making love with her and all of a sudden-boom. Like the flip of a switch, she’s back entranced.” It were those moments where he really was helpless for her, he could cradle her arms, pipes, cables, or even her vaginal tendril and she’s still left alone. Desperate and despairing with only his coos to remind her it isn’t real. He hated these moments and wished he, too, was a massive entity; massive enough to cradle her hull and hold her tight against him. So she wouldn’t feel alone.
“Sooo, how’s it work? Where do you do?” Bradley glared back at the guy.
“Use your imagination.” He sternly put, it was his way of saying ‘fuck off’. With that he gazed back upon Titanic’s massive side and wanted to hug it all, wrap her up like box and keep her to him. He went aboard to find something of hers to hold tight.