I am ten thousand tons.
Steel, mostly. Once I carried more explosive things, once I carried many scurrying meat-and-bone-and-blood things, once I carried myself above the waves as if I were lighter than air, with all the solidity and strength of a cruising mountain.
But now I squat and I sit and I move no faster than the pace of a continent. Down here in the gloom. Brewing.
*
Fish swim above me, far above me and my ten thousand tons. I can taste the motion of the water, and the little flutters of their gills, and the expulsion of their feces. Now and then (mostly then) I hear whalesong.
And lots of propellers. Chop chop chop, slicing water into pieces and moving forwards.
I used to scream up at them whenever they came close – hey! Hey down here! I’m here! Please, help me! Bring me back up! At least say something! HEY! – but there’s only so much hope a body can take.
My own propellers came down here with me. Here they are – see? See?
One is missing. It came off when I hit the bottom. It’s been lying about half a kilometer west of me for decades. We don’t keep in touch.
*
Once I gave up on talking to what lay above me, I started to talk to myself. But I was a poor conversationalist, and despaired of my own ignorance after only a few years.
Then I started talking to the fish, but they never answered and when they did they were only focused on useless things like eating and fucking and I despaired of them too.
After that I tried talking to the water, and here I met with much more success. It was all around me and it was endless and it was deeply, powerfully intent on every single thing that lay within its grasp and that was the problem. The sheer pressure of its attention withered me, shed layers of rust from me, squeezed me softly until my broken hull creaked and whined and bucked against its currents.
So now I talk to my own mass, the only companion I have. It’s as quiet as all the others but it reminds me that I am not alone with myself and it lets me pretend that I have weight and presence and reality, even if all of those things are probably my imagination.
*
Ten thousand tons on a flat sea bed; oh no no the dark is not fun.
It is fuller than you’d expect though. Little fish and creatures without bones switter and flit around my perimeter, brief flashes of light pulsing through their innards. Fronds of things neither really plant nor animal billow forth from my sides in tiny banners.
And always, from above, there is the rain. The endless rain of scraps and bodies and shreds and particulate, missed meals and failed lives. It comes down in a pitter patter so soft I didn’t even know it existed until just a little while ago. Pins dropping is next to nothing by comparison.
It sounds like this:
You see?
You can’t see much of anything down here, don’t lie to me. But you can hear it, if you try very hard.
*
I am ten thousand tons. It’s a fabrication, of course – I’m missing a propeller, and a lot of upper deck mass, and there’s these awful holes in my hull and then there’s all the rusting, the rusting, the endless endless rusting as the water selfishly scrapes and snips and breathes against my every exposed centimeter.
Grasping, greedy thing! All I have is me and my mass, and it would deprive me of even that! Curse you! Curse you, who pretended to be my friend when I was whole and full and sailed upon your self.
Why did I believe you? Why did I believe my sisters who told me to believe you? Be bold, be brave, be proud to sail the waves. I was all of those things and for what and for why? Look at me now – you can’t. I’m down here, where I am neither bold nor brave nor proud.
I am ten thousand tons. That is all.
*
A man fell down here, once.
The currents brought him as much as his own mass; from where he’d drifted I had no idea. It could’ve been one kilometer or a thousand. He was only a little careworn, I think, and seemed very peaceful now that all the life and air and panic had drained out of him.
It was such a strange thing, to feel feet touch against my bow again. But it sounded wrong – the thump of his boots was so muffled, so strangled, muffled by the water. And he wore no uniform I recognized.
What would he have told me if I had asked? But I was afraid to ask, for fear of not receiving an answer. And so we spent his visit together in awkward silence.
He weighed much less than one ton. And then the crabs came to my deck, and he weighed even less.
*
Sometimes I dwell on how I got here. It feels like I should, at least, so I try.
But it’s so hard!
There was a lot of trouble about it at the time. I was very concerned. Fire and thunderous sound and churning panic and so much death that I would have gagged if I had lungs and a stomach.
There was something funny about the water, too. Something funny.
Oh yes, it splashed me. I almost forgot it could do that. Splash splash. Water coming up into the air, out of water.
How funny to think of that.
But all in all it was such a brief day. A tiny moment in a tiny part of my life that wasn’t spent down here, alone with myself and my ten thousand tons.
*
Sometimes I am surprised.
One of my intact boilers collapsed a decade ago. That was a shock. The falling man was another. The first few years, everything was a surprise – I was very spoiled back then and didn’t even know it.
Once I heard tale of a stone that could swim. That was certainly odd.
And once, just once, I felt the ground under me shake. Maybe that was another ship landing, maybe it was the seafloor quaking, maybe it was nothing but me playing tricks on myself.
That was just once though. I’m running out of things to be surprised by, so I hope it happens again.
It can be so very lonely here, with only ten thousand tons of me and all of everything else.
*
The water tastes different, a little, I think.
The propellers are growing quieter, a little, I think.
And there are fewer fish out there, a little, I think.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe there’s finally too much of me gone to rust. What if the world really does revolve around me and as I fade away it’s going to go too.
Wouldn’t that be a very impressive thing! I’d be grateful if that were the case. A little sad, but flattered. Very flattered, a little, I think.
Maybe it’s not me. Maybe everything else is falling apart too. Maybe soon the fall will grow thicker and heavier and I’ll see hundreds of ships, hundreds of people, every fish that’s ever swam, all of them coming down here all at once to meet me and fill the miles of dead water with dead bodies.
I’ll be afraid of all the bustle, I imagine.
I’ll be shy of all the company, I expect.
I’ll be sad to see so many come to such harm, I believe.
But won’t it be a nice thing, to be a part of ten billion tons rather than ten thousand?