by Sydne Maisonville
To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. – Alan Watts
“Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore,” A man remarks after a local journalist voices concerns about the rocking of the vessel. Folly.
He watches his two daughters running down the deck, chasing each other like two little squirrels. He smiles. He enjoys the light breeze, the fresh air. He does much of this, watching his little girls play, smiling, enjoying the voyage, until the boat makes a stop to pick up more passengers.
A fresh crowd fills the boat. There is far less space now; it’s hard to see his girls. He believes they are still chasing each other. He can make out glimpses of squirrelly little shapes weaving through people. He lights a cigarette and takes a lazy drag.
Whispers about the listing of the boat hit the man’s ear; he rolls his eyes.
He watches, amused as a few people dive off the side of the boat and swim toward the shore, having expressed fear of the boat’s safety. How dramatic, he thinks. Folly.
His daughters take a break from their play, resting at his side. Just as they do so, the vessel passes by The Princess Louise. People rush to offer waves to the passengers of the other vessel.
The man’s boat dips down sharply from the shift in weight distribution. A pang of fear takes the man for a moment, and his girls cling to his hip. As the other boat passes by and people return to their former places, the boat more or less settles. The man shrugs off his dread. Folly.
The lowest deck passengers have managed to make the news travel that they are ankle deep in water. The voyage does not pause to pick up any more passengers waiting at the next few docks. Folks are in good spirits; children are running around, and the band plays on. The dancing and joy causes the boat to rock consistently. The man who moved near to the rails of the deck laughs gaily at his daughters attempting to catch a duck’s attention.
“Look, papa!” One of his girls exclaims, pointing out at the water. He looks to see two rowers racing each other down the river. Others behind him rush to see. The boat tilts far too much. Realizing the danger, the crowds run to the other side. The man pulls his daughters to follow the crowd. Folly.
At the sound of screeching metal, the man watches a steam boiler tear off from itself on the lower deck and send boiling water into the poor folks below it. He turns his daughters away from the scene quickly, running with them to hopeful safety. But the boiler knocks out the support below, and the floor collapses beneath their feet. He hears his children scream as he tries to be the thing they fall on.
“Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.”
He tries not to think of the people under the rubble he lands on – he can’t when he has his children to worry about. He makes sure they are okay, and they all stand as well as they can. They run to the edge of the boat, others following them, looking beyond the broken railing. He thinks of what to do, but not for long.
The boat tips. Slipping on the water and debris, the girls fall and slide over the edge. The man desperately reaches for them; they are already fallen too far.
He slows down time as the sees as the layers of fabric his daughters wear, the skirts, the fuss, are bunched up and waterlogged.
“Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.” Folly.
Everything is slow, and he can’t leap fast enough as his daughters are swept beneath the damned ship. His body breaks the surface tension of the water; he blindly claws the river in front of him, barely able to see those two bundles of fabric and yellow hair and limp limbs.
“Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.”
The man pushes sinking debris away. He seems miles away from the suspended children he failed to protect. He swims as they cannot, as he should have known they could not. He repeats his own words in his mind; he repeats and repeats and repeats.
“Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.” He chokes on water, his instincts to breathe override the threat. “Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.” He can only thrash wildly as his primal self fights the exhaustion of his muscles. “Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.” Tunnel vision closes in, he is helpless as the two girls start to become shadows.
“Even if she sinks, we’ll just swim to shore.”
Folly, folly, folly.
