فصل 95

emilia

The raft was sheet steel with large buoyancy floats on each end. Planks of wood stretched across the tanks with netting in between. The ship tilted and our raft began to skid. Like a winter sled racing down an icy hill, we skated across the deck.

Metal scraping. People screaming.

I grasped tightly to the netting. Our raft launched out into the sea.

Items tumbled into the water behind us with a splash. Luggage. Empty rafts. Empty bodies.

A crowded lifeboat floated nearby. Drowning people in the water clung to the edges of the boat, desperately trying to pull themselves in.

“Please,” begged a teenage boy. “I’m so cold. Please let me in.” He gripped the side of the lifeboat, struggling to pull himself up.

“It’s too crowded. It will capsize,” argued the people in the boat.

“Could you please warm my hands then? Please, help me?”

They did not warm his hands. They beat at the teenager’s fingers until he released his grip and slipped beneath the surface with a few small bubbles.

“Come!” I yelled to the people in the water. “We have room on the raft.” And then an enormous wave lifted the raft and pulled us away from the sinking ship.

How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky. I watched from the raft as the beautiful deep began to swallow the massive boat of steel.

In one large gulp.