A boat, a supertanker, a yacht, it's all the same. Fire being the great equaliser in that scenario. The result- oil on the water, flotsam, jetsam...bodies.
And of course it appeals to our shared subconscious -Archetypes: Fire and water, air, and the fear a total absence of earth provides. And death, let's not forget that. The dark rider, his horse floating even above the depths, dancing on the high tide mark. Amphibious in his jurisdiction. The Jungian motif.
It must look like an eclipse from below. A dark shape surrounded by a halo of fire, the sky blackening around it, providing contrast. Black eyes watching from the deep, anticipating the arrival of fresh meat, a slow rain of alien objects. Ropes, steel, televisions, all drifting to the ocean floor, awaiting further instruction from physics.
Muted sounds of metals colliding, rending, thrashing legs and arms, lungs filling.
They say that drowning is the most peaceful way to die, gradually breathing in water, falling asleep, drifting into restful blackness. I can guarantee you that this is untrue, and speaks nothing of the terror, the wide-eyed flailing panic, as you are suffocated by the very elements that comprise you. There is no peace, no surrender, just the dark, exhaustion, sadness.
And the knowledge that your body will go under, stay under for days, being sampled by denizens of the waters, until hideous bloating causes you to rise again, like a pale, bony jellyfish, for the gulls to use as a makeshift island of rotting nutrients.
Not much to celebrate.
But what is it that separates us from the boat? From the water? From the air above us and the life flashing silver below us?
Nothing, but our minds. Our consciousness, the thing that makes us 'us'. The same thing we simply cannot find with science, with machinery, with chemicals.
We are all the same matter, organised into different piles, mixed in different ways. We're all from the same source, and we all return to it. Death returns us to the water, the soil, the air. And from that point we are re-organised again, into flowers and sidewalks and the skulls of small mammals that grow into rats and live on ships again. And ropes and motors and paintings. And food for cats.
The one thing that makes us fight for this thing we call life, our individual and impossible to locate mind, the seemingly spiritual link to our corporeal body, is itself, invisible. The inner voice of the matter inside us. The periodic table, each element a note, the life signal a melody we hear with our hearts, not our ears. With our minds, not our brains. A wistful bumble bee flight when we laugh. A shuddering crescendo when we die. A soundtrack as long as we live...
There's a lot more to think about in this life, than what we may right now. And sometimes, it's necessary to live dangerously, to escape complacency, to make our senses available for the reception of that signal, in order to see things as they are.
...Our ship is on fire.
This is knifey, from 'the internet'.
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