(Editor: The account begins with fragments of sentences which were crossed through. Evidently the author found it difficult to begin, and made several attempts before the writing becomes ordered and coherent. Of the 'hesitations', I show here the ones which lead naturally into the first full paragraph.)
I DIDN'T KILL THEM
I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE
These were my friends, I swear I didn't do this
Simon died too, but he didn't die with the others, he was killed by
Everyone in the command centre died of fright. And now I think, having written that, I can carry on writing more. Because I wrote it and I stopped to laugh. Strange to laugh after what's happened. It was a laugh of despair and sickness, of course, but it feels like I just dislodged a stone from my chest.
Died of fright. Ridiculous. It's a phrase for another time, the sort of thing a man with mutton chops would exclaim while raising a lantern. "They appear to have died of fright, constable!" But it's true. You won't find any toxins, or evidence of violence, if this ship is discovered before
Well before they decompose. I can't believe I have to think of them like this, what will happen to their bodies in the weeks or months to come. The Sun hasn't even set on their last day. The Mimas is going to become a ghost ship - adrift at sea, no one alive on board. I suppose it will drift into the gyre currents and go on a long circular trip around the South Atlantic. I hope it's never found. I hope that it's found. Both of these statements are true. Maybe I should compromise: I hope we're found for the sake of the friends and family of the crew, but enough time passes first so no one can make a guess where we've been. To that extent I'll have to watch what I write very carefully, so as not to give too much away. Simon was right.
And if I'm allowed to be selfish, I hope that the ship is found so someone can read this. I might be about to die myself soon. I haven't decided what to do. I don't want to think about it, when I begin to I start to shiver and that stone settles on my chest again. I'm probably compelled to write about what happened as a way of coming to a decision.
Where to start, where to start. With an introduction, of course. Hello! I'm Matthew Brennan, I'm 45 years old, widowed but not very recently. Up until today I was part of the crew of the R.V. Mimas, I piloted the submersible. For the layman, that's a mini submarine. If you've watched a wildlife documentary on TV any time in the past few years you've undoubtedly seen one, or at least their work. Two or three people sat in a clear bubble as it glides underwater, in search of marine exotica? That's the thing. In addition to my piloting prowess I have skills in camera work and some expertise in marine life, although really Simon's your man for that. Simon was your man for that.
Possibly you've even seen some of my showreel. Schools of hammerheads silhouetted by sunlight scattered over the water's surface, the bizarre features of the cockeyed squid, bioluminescent jellies looming out of the dark. I'm quite proud of my contribution in the realm of entertainment, but my latest and best work won't ever be seen. I won't say it's a shame, even though it also would have made all kinds of scientific breakthroughs.
So that's the Mimas - we have a team of camera divers, and our submersible, and our lab facilities, and we accept contracts to support science teams and take them to various destinations to carry out their research, or produce pretty footage of undersea fauna for the TV corporations.
We'd been hosting Simon's team for the past three months. Simon Darnell was professor of marine conservation biology at Cornell University. He was interested in the effect of climate change on the temperature of the water around the Amundsen Sea, which was causing significant melting of the Antarctic ice sheet. We spent our days collecting samples for measurement, taking temperature and current flow readings, and filming the wildlife on the side.
Before this expedition I was on compassionate leave. My Sarah had died some months before: she carried the gene which made her susceptible to breast cancer, and when it came it took over with a ferocity that seemed to continually feed us with devastation. It robbed us of everything : we were no longer binary stars orbiting each other, we could barely see each other for the dark mass between us. We both revolved around the cancer that consumed our time, our resources, and, I am ashamed to say, our love. I wasn't very good at being a punchbag, I resented the lack of sleep and I hated having to maintain a cheerful face. When there wasn't anger, there was sorrow.
In the days and months after the funeral I kept to myself. I didn't become the cliched slob, wallowing in a room filled with half-eaten takeaways, grey TV light behind drawn curtains. I'm too ordered, too disciplined for that. I answered the phone, I accepted visitors, I would visit relatives who insisted I come over. But I was passive: I would only react to the actions of others. If no one called upon me, I would remain alone. Clean the house, do the laundry, make myself some dinner, go to sleep, get up, repeat. A self-imposed house arrest with occasional parole. Was it depression? Grief? I didn't feel particularly sad. The overwhelming sensation I felt is best described as 'hollowness'.
My employers eventually called on me with a proposition they thought I'd be interested in taking up; Simon and I had known each other at University, although not terribly well. I got a second, he was always going to graduate with a first. We didn't stay in touch after graduation. My interests were already veering towards wildlife photography, and that's where my career took me. I was informed that he continued his studies and went on to become a research scientist.
By then I was eager to get back to sea. There are many old tales of young men who take a post on a packet just as it is about to set sail to escape some trouble, either of the mind or of the authorities. I can understand why the ocean calls to them. Looking out to the horizon, seeing nothing but restlessly moving water, and every moment occupied by busywork. Eventually feeling that nothing can reach you, not the demons within nor the adversaries without. And the sea accepts your sorrow and your sins, it swallows them whole and can take as much as you have to pour into it. It's a massive heat sink. Saltwater is an emollient for memories that burn.
I met Simon in his office at the University. He had been allocated a small room high up in an old building, overlooking an open expanse of grassland. On that day the weather was dreary, and I watched students hurry to or fro over the grounds, while strong winds drove soft rain streaming across the panes of the window. One wall of the office was taken up from floor to ceiling with shelves handcrafted from white painted planks of wood, all of which were stuffed with books, and folders which were themselves stuffed with reams of paper. Clearly the shelves weren't enough for Simon's needs - the excess material spilled over into piles on a desk propped against the shelves, and the excess of that ended up as smaller piles on the corded green carpet around the desk chair. A rusty space heater pumped warm air over them, but it couldn't contend with the thin gusts which came from that poorly insulated window, which made a polite thump against its frame whenever the wind picked up. Some of the desk space was given over to a small plastic kettle which squatted in a nest of boxes of teabags of various combinations of herb and fruit, and a computer with the screen bezel smothered with post-it notes.
This all gave me the impression of the classically disorganised, awkard, scatterbrain academic; but that turned out to be an unfair jump to judgement. He had accumulated the stacks of paper through years of toiling away. He lacked the time and means to file it away as he wished he could, which was to have all that information, which only existed in paper form, scanned, digitised and stored. As such it had to reside where he could access it easily - right in front of him.
Simon's work area in the command centre - when it held a computer - was neat and sparsely decorated. A cup repurposed as a receptacle for pens and pencils, a notebook and a couple of reference textbooks in a single pile, a coaster and mug, and nothing else. But perhaps he was true to his archetype after all; his computer desktop was as littered with icons, files and folders as its physical equivalent.
I DIDN'T KILL THEM
I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE
These were my friends, I swear I didn't do this
Simon died too, but he didn't die with the others, he was killed by
Everyone in the command centre died of fright. And now I think, having written that, I can carry on writing more. Because I wrote it and I stopped to laugh. Strange to laugh after what's happened. It was a laugh of despair and sickness, of course, but it feels like I just dislodged a stone from my chest.
Died of fright. Ridiculous. It's a phrase for another time, the sort of thing a man with mutton chops would exclaim while raising a lantern. "They appear to have died of fright, constable!" But it's true. You won't find any toxins, or evidence of violence, if this ship is discovered before
Well before they decompose. I can't believe I have to think of them like this, what will happen to their bodies in the weeks or months to come. The Sun hasn't even set on their last day. The Mimas is going to become a ghost ship - adrift at sea, no one alive on board. I suppose it will drift into the gyre currents and go on a long circular trip around the South Atlantic. I hope it's never found. I hope that it's found. Both of these statements are true. Maybe I should compromise: I hope we're found for the sake of the friends and family of the crew, but enough time passes first so no one can make a guess where we've been. To that extent I'll have to watch what I write very carefully, so as not to give too much away. Simon was right.
And if I'm allowed to be selfish, I hope that the ship is found so someone can read this. I might be about to die myself soon. I haven't decided what to do. I don't want to think about it, when I begin to I start to shiver and that stone settles on my chest again. I'm probably compelled to write about what happened as a way of coming to a decision.
Where to start, where to start. With an introduction, of course. Hello! I'm Matthew Brennan, I'm 45 years old, widowed but not very recently. Up until today I was part of the crew of the R.V. Mimas, I piloted the submersible. For the layman, that's a mini submarine. If you've watched a wildlife documentary on TV any time in the past few years you've undoubtedly seen one, or at least their work. Two or three people sat in a clear bubble as it glides underwater, in search of marine exotica? That's the thing. In addition to my piloting prowess I have skills in camera work and some expertise in marine life, although really Simon's your man for that. Simon was your man for that.
Possibly you've even seen some of my showreel. Schools of hammerheads silhouetted by sunlight scattered over the water's surface, the bizarre features of the cockeyed squid, bioluminescent jellies looming out of the dark. I'm quite proud of my contribution in the realm of entertainment, but my latest and best work won't ever be seen. I won't say it's a shame, even though it also would have made all kinds of scientific breakthroughs.
So that's the Mimas - we have a team of camera divers, and our submersible, and our lab facilities, and we accept contracts to support science teams and take them to various destinations to carry out their research, or produce pretty footage of undersea fauna for the TV corporations.
We'd been hosting Simon's team for the past three months. Simon Darnell was professor of marine conservation biology at Cornell University. He was interested in the effect of climate change on the temperature of the water around the Amundsen Sea, which was causing significant melting of the Antarctic ice sheet. We spent our days collecting samples for measurement, taking temperature and current flow readings, and filming the wildlife on the side.
Before this expedition I was on compassionate leave. My Sarah had died some months before: she carried the gene which made her susceptible to breast cancer, and when it came it took over with a ferocity that seemed to continually feed us with devastation. It robbed us of everything : we were no longer binary stars orbiting each other, we could barely see each other for the dark mass between us. We both revolved around the cancer that consumed our time, our resources, and, I am ashamed to say, our love. I wasn't very good at being a punchbag, I resented the lack of sleep and I hated having to maintain a cheerful face. When there wasn't anger, there was sorrow.
In the days and months after the funeral I kept to myself. I didn't become the cliched slob, wallowing in a room filled with half-eaten takeaways, grey TV light behind drawn curtains. I'm too ordered, too disciplined for that. I answered the phone, I accepted visitors, I would visit relatives who insisted I come over. But I was passive: I would only react to the actions of others. If no one called upon me, I would remain alone. Clean the house, do the laundry, make myself some dinner, go to sleep, get up, repeat. A self-imposed house arrest with occasional parole. Was it depression? Grief? I didn't feel particularly sad. The overwhelming sensation I felt is best described as 'hollowness'.
My employers eventually called on me with a proposition they thought I'd be interested in taking up; Simon and I had known each other at University, although not terribly well. I got a second, he was always going to graduate with a first. We didn't stay in touch after graduation. My interests were already veering towards wildlife photography, and that's where my career took me. I was informed that he continued his studies and went on to become a research scientist.
By then I was eager to get back to sea. There are many old tales of young men who take a post on a packet just as it is about to set sail to escape some trouble, either of the mind or of the authorities. I can understand why the ocean calls to them. Looking out to the horizon, seeing nothing but restlessly moving water, and every moment occupied by busywork. Eventually feeling that nothing can reach you, not the demons within nor the adversaries without. And the sea accepts your sorrow and your sins, it swallows them whole and can take as much as you have to pour into it. It's a massive heat sink. Saltwater is an emollient for memories that burn.
I met Simon in his office at the University. He had been allocated a small room high up in an old building, overlooking an open expanse of grassland. On that day the weather was dreary, and I watched students hurry to or fro over the grounds, while strong winds drove soft rain streaming across the panes of the window. One wall of the office was taken up from floor to ceiling with shelves handcrafted from white painted planks of wood, all of which were stuffed with books, and folders which were themselves stuffed with reams of paper. Clearly the shelves weren't enough for Simon's needs - the excess material spilled over into piles on a desk propped against the shelves, and the excess of that ended up as smaller piles on the corded green carpet around the desk chair. A rusty space heater pumped warm air over them, but it couldn't contend with the thin gusts which came from that poorly insulated window, which made a polite thump against its frame whenever the wind picked up. Some of the desk space was given over to a small plastic kettle which squatted in a nest of boxes of teabags of various combinations of herb and fruit, and a computer with the screen bezel smothered with post-it notes.
This all gave me the impression of the classically disorganised, awkard, scatterbrain academic; but that turned out to be an unfair jump to judgement. He had accumulated the stacks of paper through years of toiling away. He lacked the time and means to file it away as he wished he could, which was to have all that information, which only existed in paper form, scanned, digitised and stored. As such it had to reside where he could access it easily - right in front of him.
Simon's work area in the command centre - when it held a computer - was neat and sparsely decorated. A cup repurposed as a receptacle for pens and pencils, a notebook and a couple of reference textbooks in a single pile, a coaster and mug, and nothing else. But perhaps he was true to his archetype after all; his computer desktop was as littered with icons, files and folders as its physical equivalent.
Comments
Post a Comment