The Ship

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The rusty brown hull rests on underwater crags, sloping five degrees to port and thirty astern. Its prow pierces the ice at a sharp angle and the stern juts out over a murky fissure, causing the six-storey wheelhouse to lean over the abyss like a haunted house, the empty windows of the bridge staring at nothing. During the day, bluish light filters through the ice into the depths, where curious seals swim around the wreck, which quickens occasionally in the ocean currents, producing a long, drawn-out screech, heavy thumps and a thick oil slick, green, pink and purple in the weak light that floats up under the ice like liquid aurora borealis.

That which sleeps forever is not dead.

Monday, 10 September 2001

It’s four minutes to eight in the narrow kitchen of the Old Town house where a young family of three is eating cabbage and meatballs with melted butter and new potatoes.

Outside the window is the cold and dark of autumn; inside the kitchen it is warm and bright.

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