The Loneliness of the Iceberg

I didn’t see it coming.

It was a cold night, without clouds — one of those nights I like best, when the air feels like crystal and my thoughts are hard and sharp. I was floating; not because I was happy, I think, but because there’s nothing in the world to keep me afloat but myself. My heart is frail, but buoyant.

The night was clear, and the ocean was calm, unusually still even, you can check the weather reports. The wind was moderate, as were the currents. It was freezing, yes. A cold front that passed through from the east coast. But is that my fault? I have nothing but my sheets to protect me, and you don’t see me floating around and accusing the sun of shining too bright.

I didn’t see it coming.

And why should I have?

When I first noticed the black hull approaching, it was almost too late. I had already taken the first hit. It didn’t hurt at first, but it did startle me. And before I knew it, a silent battle had begun: The ship pushed me, jabbed its pointy prow into my sides. My hip gave away. I felt my spine crack. The insides of my torso burst with screeching sounds of agony. But that wasn’t even the worst pain: What I felt deepest was the sudden and irretrievable violation of my personal space.

I didn’t see it coming. And why should I have?

I did nothing wrong.

I, too, am a body. A body of ice, transparent and numbing, but a body nonetheless. And if we want to get technical, Your Honor, wasn’t it me who was just minding their business by drifting in my very own habitat? You’d expect an iceberg in the ocean rather than you’d expect 46,000 tons of metal and steel. You can’t argue with that.

Let me explain something. We icebergs follow the winds and currents with a fatalistic sense of duty: We are stoics — indifferent maybe, but never impassive. We drift not out of obligation, but out of necessity. We are always moving because, well, what else would we do? We do not wrestle. We endure. You have no idea of the weights we carry around.

Why I’ve been quiet all this time then, you ask? See, I don’t actually exist anymore. My purgatory lasted two hours and forty minutes, and I didn’t even put up a fight. Who dares to say I should have cooperated?

I didn’t see it coming. And why should I have? I did nothing wrong.

And still, I was ashamed.

The truth is: It wasn’t my intention to hurt anyone, let alone 1,517 of you. Really. The vessel’s collision was forced, my resistance was only natural. And while your future might have ended in the early hours of April 15, 1912, mine began long before.

Oh, when? It was a snowy night, somewhere around Greenland, a few thousand years ago. I was pressed into ice and then sent out to sea. Later, through endless space, I started my voyage south. I had a life to lead. I guess that’s what I’ve been trying to say all along: I had no intention. I was merely drifting, I was mindless. I was free.

Until I wasn’t. When that ship sailed into me, beautiful as it might have been, I didn’t melt — I was crushed. It wasn’t love. It was violence. It was power. A tragedy, yes. But for whom?

I didn’t see it coming. And why should I have? I did nothing wrong. And still, I was ashamed.

But, fuck!

Listen, I bet you read all about this fateful journey. I bet you know all the facts and figures, you know when the first chambers started filling with water and when the violins stopped playing. You know how many people left the ship and again how many of them left their lives elsewhere. You probably cried over that god awful James Cameron movie and frequently irritate dinner parties by arguing that “there was enough space for two on that door”.

You moped over Thomas Hardy and his poem about the communion between an ocean liner and a block of ice, unknowingly bemoaning the guilt of a frigid Englishman over neglecting his wife, and lusted after all the other lyrics that make this a story of villain and victim. What a pitiful fate, you said in unison, crushed by the glacial monster. Poor Titanic. It was love.

You looked up pictures of the wreck and wondered whether crabs now crawl around those sunken ballrooms and dine under rust-eaten chandeliers. You researched — articles, documentaries, those podcasts you can’t seem to shut up about (did you check the weather reports yet?). It did even occur to you to acknowledge the fallibility of human hubris. But you never bothered to think about my side of the story.

Somewhere in the cool waters of the Atlantic, there swims an iceberg with your name on it.

Why would anyone disturb it?

(This is love.)

Yes, sometimes it’s lonely. But it’s all mine.

Photo credits: United States Coast Guard