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wills
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Requiem for a Dream.
here is the thread mb i promised you.
please feel free to share your stories here as well.
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 12:52 am
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Merzibelle
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
I shall do that... if you want to see my works, including this one... they are at http://www.merzibelle.net
and, in two days when the servers change, http://www.merzibelle.com
The next post will be the story. Short and poignant. The first of several I believe.
MB
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And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/22/2004, 12:54 am
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Merzibelle
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Requiem for a Dream - story post
Requiem for a Dream
by: Merzibelle
14 April 2012
Most of my life I’ve hated my parents obsession with the RMS Titanic, but this year I blessed them for it. I grew up surrounded by memorials, artifacts, books, anything and everything they could afford to get their hands on. Even my name is a memorial to that ship, though I should consider myself lucky I suppose. After all, they gave me a mostly normal name, Elba Lorriane, as opposed to naming me for the ship itself. That humiliating experience had been given to my cousin, so it could have been worse.
I suppose you’re wondering why I’m pleased about their obsession considering I’m trussed up like some grand Edwardian lady and standing, near frozen, on the deck of a ship in the middle of the North Atlantic? Because while they are ‘celebrating’ the sinking of that grand liner by recreating the final first class dinner, I get to be here, just above what remains of Titanic, and remember her fine crew.
It’s not hard to imagine the chaos of that night… of decisions made in an instant, for good or ill. It’s easy for me to see First Officer Murdoch, hands clenched on the bridge wall, silently begging the ship to turn, to make it about the berg, and as the ship vibrates beneath his hands, grounding herself on the ice, feel the devastating realization that all his efforts were for naught.
In my minds eye, I can see the bleakness in his eyes, the pain and sadness, as he closed the watertight doors before turning to make his report to the captain. I can see E.J. Smith, disbelieving, demanding the carpenter sound the ship that they summon Mr. Andrews to the bridge to explain what was happening. Mr. Murdoch, being a man of the sea from his youngest years, would know Titanic was dying, a realization shared in a glance with Mr. Andrews as the master shipbuilder arrives on the bridge.
Those would be the last peaceful moments aboard the great ship. Word would spread, coming up from steerage where already water was invading the cabins and down from the bridge that the great liner was doomed. Most wouldn’t believe, after all The Shipbuilder had declared her unsinkable; they’d rather take there chances aboard Titanic then climb into a lifeboat and be cast adrift on the open sea.
And I wonder about the final parting between three men, friends perhaps, before going to their duties. Lightoller and Murdoch to load the life , get as many of the passengers off before the ship goes down, and Andrews to goad those very passengers up to the boat deck. What words passed between them? Or was there no need for words? Just sure knowledge that baring a miracle all of them would be dead before dawn.
As the screams began – I can almost hear them echoing across the water toward me – Mr. Murdoch struggles to maintain order around the last of the starboard life. An accident, a horrific accident, is the last straw on his already strained nerves. Combined with the knowledge that death is staring him in the face, cold and icy waters swirling nearby, he takes his own life. The first of the three to fall that night.
I can almost hear the sound of Mr. Lightoller, or was it Mr. Wilde; I can’t remember… still, I can hear his cry of denial, trying to stop Murdoch’s suicide. No, Will!, echoes across the water, joining the screams of panicked passengers from steerage who have finally made it to the deck only to discover that there is no escaping death.
And far below, where those screams are only echoes, muffled by glass and steel, Thomas Andrews stood and listened to his greatest creation, that he’d poured his heart and soul into for three years, creak and groan. She was dying, tearing herself apart, and yet he couldn’t leave her. She was as much his child as the little girl he’d left behind in Belfast… the little girl he’d never see grow up, the wife he’d never hold again. Still, Titanic was as much his daughter as little Elba was and he couldn’t leave her to die alone. Instead, he stood, alone before the fireplace in the smoking room, head bowed and eyes closed, just waiting for the end. A brave man, indeed.
And the last, Lightoller, who’d live the longest, but always long for the days when the future looked brightest as Titanic sailed into the sunset. He did everything he could to get the passengers off. If it weren’t for the funnel’s collapse, he’d likely have died too. Only the wave generated at it’s crashing into the sea saved his life by washing him overboard. Though he lived for a very long time after Titanic, I think that in some ways his life ended with that ship.
If I close my eyes, I can see that great liner, slipping slowly beneath the waves until the moment that, unbalanced, she broke her back. The stern settling into the water for a moment, then plunging down with a thousand screaming people still clinging to her. A shudder raced over me, a chill far colder than the North Atlantic breeze, for the briefest of moments I thought I smelled pipe tobacco, felt a hand on my back and an arm across my shoulders. I had to be imagining it; even so, I didn’t look. For with those faint touches came the sure knowledge that as long as one person remembered the truth, didn’t dramatize it to ‘play’, then they and their sacrifices would never truly be forgotten or wasted. With a shaking hand, I lifted the rose I’d stolen from the arrangement on the table inside. Pressing a kiss to its velvety petals, I tossed it off the stern, watching until the red of the petals became just a darker blob on the dark sea.
There were those who’d called her ‘Unsinkable’ and others who called her the ‘Ship of Dreams’, to me Titanic was everything that was best and worst of her time, a broken dream destroyed by the folly of one man. I will remember her, her passengers and her crew. May they finally find peace, if not happiness.
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And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/22/2004, 1:01 am
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wills
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
that is great. thansk so much mb for sharing with us. and your other work is good to. what i have read.
im looking forward to your new book.
any chance of an autograph. 
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 1:04 am
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Merzibelle
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
Maybe.
I have a rough sketch/outline of a longer Titanic piece, along with several contracted professional pieces. I think I write too much.
And you're welcome. Tis always good to find an appreciative audience.
MB
---
And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/22/2004, 1:09 am
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wills
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
you know i have always said that sometimes when you just cant say anything it is best to write it down. so i dont think you write too much. if you liek what you do then by all means continue to. and as i said please feel free to post whatever story you have written on here.
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 1:12 am
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Merzibelle
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
Oh I love it. I can't not write. And I shall, Will, I shall.
MB
---
And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/22/2004, 1:14 am
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wills
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
yessss glad to hear it love really,,
you are good at it.
wills 
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 1:18 am
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Merzibelle
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
*blush* Why thank you.
MB
---
And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home. ~ Christopher Columbus.
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Jul/22/2004, 1:23 am
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wills
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Re: Requiem for a Dream.
your quite welcome my lady.
always enjoy a wonderfull read and your seems to be just that.
wills
---
Suicide is a permenant solution to a temporay problem........
Whatever obstacles control,
Go on, true heart,
thou'lt reach the goal.
http://com4.runboard.com/bthetitanicshack
wills~~~~~
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Jul/22/2004, 1:29 am
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