Riley / THE IMPOSSIBLE ICEBERG /

1

Hello. Who’s there? Forgive my aged eyes, for the dust has scoured them dry and rendered me sightless. Oh, it’s you. Isn’t it? Of course it is.

I knew it when I heard you knock. The same timid knock as hers, all those years ago. On the cruise ship, or my front door. I had a shiver run down my spine just before you knocked. Then I heard your voice, and I was sure. Who else would it be this late at night, at this time of year? The only person who ever visited me at this time was my wife. My poor, sorry Sonja.

Come in, then. There is no use just standing here in the open, I have chairs and tea inside. What will you take? You must be thirsty to have come all this way. No, my dear. I won’t hear a no. There you go: no sugar, no milk. It’s hard to find both of those out here in the desert. Be careful, blow on it first. Like everything out here, it’s hot until it goes dark.

How did you find me? And who is your friend here, I can’t see but I can feel him there. You both feel so frail. You must have been through so much to get here. I will want to hear all about it.

I have questions, of course, but you must have so many more. After all of this time. Why don’t I tell you how it all happened. From the beginning, to the moment you sat down. With everything filled in between, including why I left. You were so much smaller then. Just as thin, but so much smaller. No, let me tell you this story, for when I am done I hope to have answered all your questions in the process. I hope you will listen to an old man, just once. And somehow forgive him.

#

Hello, Dear Reader.

My name is Tim, and I’ve presented this tale as best as I can remember it from when first it was told to me. Maybe I could have told you one of my grandfather’s stories that had a happy beginning, with a happy middle that all lead to a happy end. It would have been nice. But what would we learn?

Deep down, do we really like things that we think are nice, or do we like those things to endure challenge before we appreciate them. Yearly, my mother throws away plastic containers and cups that are still like new.

Don’t you dare ask her to throw away her crockpot, with its cracks and leaks that make it hers - with her personality. Her history sharing the pot’s enamel.

And maybe it helps to know the history of things. Sometimes it helps to sit back and listen to dusty tapes of people talking, or read over favourite books again. Sometimes nothing helps, and you worry a lot. At least I do.

What do you worry about, reader?

This is a story about a girl called Cindy, whose left foot was always bigger than her right. And just as she’s found a shoe that fits perfectly, its partner is either too big or too small. She needs to know if anyone cares about her. She needs to know if she belongs to the left shoe, or the right shoe.

But maybe it’s also so much more than that.

This is a story about a young boy named Daniel. It’s a story about a whole generation of children stolen from their homes. A story about an oil tanker that destroyed an ocean. About a prime minister who went for a swim and disappeared. About me, and my anxiety.

Maybe it’s none of those things at all. Sometimes you need to explain what a story isn’t to find out what it could be.

So. This is a story about 35 women who lost their lives to domestic violence in one country before the month of June. This is the story of twelve young people who left the safety of home to fight on the other side of a war that we don’t understand, and weren’t allowed back in. About a Dingo that may or may not have eaten a baby.

This is the story of Cindy.

#

Cindy stood at the shoreline with her hands above her head.

Her voice pierced out and over the waves of the night, ’Does anyone care?’

The wind pinched at her hair, and bit into her bones, throwing her cries back in her face. No one heard, or if they did, they didn’t care enough to call back.

’No one wants me,’ she said, collapsing in defeat. The water tasted her sides, and she watched the clouds roll above her like crumpled, colossal bed sheets. Waves kissed her face and tucked her in. ’No one wants me.’ And it was true. Nobody wanted her but the ocean.

But that jealous sea was no longer that salt lick green, with hints of melancholic blue. It was a brighter shade of radioactive green. And its blue became a terrible black. The ocean was sick, and Cindy made it sicker as the water spilled in around her, and she wondered if the beasts from below had come to turn her home into an island, as they did to her ancestors thousands of years ago. As the slick tendrils of the ocean pulled her farther out and began to grope at her clothes, she let loose a tear and wondered why life was addicted to making itself ill.

It felt like a week to her, out there on top of the sea. Occasionally, a seagull with crystal eyes perched on her outstretched arm, or her drifting legs, and spoke to her. It said ’He found the shoe.’ Some days, she was visited by a flock of the birds. To them, Cindy was a boat. An unfulfilled vessel upon which they found refuge upon the splintered and scorched remnants of her heart’s mast. To the ocean, however, she was the most important person in the world.

Cindy was pretending that it was a Tuesday and that she was still with her mother when the cruise ship sounded its horn next to her. Without knowing the risks, the crew hoisted down the ropes and helped to pull her on board. She dripped onto the smooth deck and as the passengers crowded around her, ogling her like a zoo beast. The name of the ship was printed everywhere: on the side of the hull, on most of the doors, it was even stained onto the windows of each cabin. Somehow, instead of drowning like she had planned earlier that day, she had found herself aboard the Titanic II.

The crew led her through to the Captain’s bridge, which required passing through the dining hall. Each table was clothed in golden sheets, with sterling polished cutlery set with an exactness that made her uncomfortable. Waiting staff wore gold ties.

’They found a live girl out there,’ gossiped passengers to each other, until like a swarm of ants, the whole ship had communicated and knew she was aboard. They were far more interested in the breathing, remorsefully alive woman they found floating on the cold ocean, than the breast of corn fed chicken, served with creamed mousseron and asparagus that the chef on board had lovingly prepared. The passengers pooled together and found her dry clothes that fit, including an odd pair of shoes to match her odd sized feet. One was a blue slipper, accentuating her calf muscles. The other was a pink and grey Nike jogger owned by an American woman who had thought Australia was in Europe when she booked the cruise. Cindy had never worn anything so comfortable.

Once she was dressed and dry, a crew mate showed her to the bridge, and introduced her to a burly man named Captain Ibell. He wore a square sea cap, and had grown his orange beard out long enough to cover the shame of his distracted eyes. It almost blended to his visibility vest.

’So, you’re the girl who found her way onto my ship.’

Cindy glanced to her feet.

’Where are you from then, darlin’?’

’Australia.’

’Perfect! We’re going back to Australia now, sweetheart,’ he said. ’Why don’t you go back to your cabin and rest up?’

’I don’t have a cabin, yet.’

’Why don’t you have a cabin?’

’Because you haven’t given one.’ She wondered if they’d try to make her pay for it. Or work for it after they found out she couldn’t pay a cent.

The captain saw concern in her eyes and chuckled at her. ’Strewth. Well, I’ll have my first mate here make sure that you have the best cabin we’ve got. I’ll come get you myself when tucka’s served, and I swear we’ll be back in Melbourne in a couple of days.’

Cindy stayed still, and bowed her head like a child who broke their mother’s vase. She wanted to scream at him, make it clear she didn’t want a cabin. They all remind her of the door she regretted walking through, but she didn’t have the courage. ’I don’t want to go back to Australia. Nobody wants me there.’

’Sure they do. Why wouldn’t they?’

’Nobody wants me but the ocean.’ And it was true. As they spoke, that great, green ocean was plotting a storm to bring down that vessel, and reclaim her.

’I think you’re terribly sad, girl. But it’s important that you’re still alive. You’re safe out here, Girl. And you’ll be even safer in Melbourne. We’ll get you home from there.’

Cindy was in her cabin when it happened, one with a door that looked very much like the door she regretted walking through, except it had the words Titanic II printed on it. A grating, scraping noise - like a prolonged car crash screeched through the gap under her door. She looked out the window at an ethereal green ocean. Captain Ibell and his crew were scrambling about, yelling at passengers to get to their rooms, or to embrace the safety position.

She heard the Captain say, ’It’s fucking impossible.’

Lifeboats engaged. Cindy’s eyes were hexed upon the impossible iceberg rising, a translucent kraken, from the depths. It seemed to be greeting her, arms outstretched as it licked the side of the cruise ship. Some people fell overboard, others were pushed. Men fought for space on lifeboats, desperate to get their wife on a lifeboat so that they can drown in peace, without hearing one last nag.

There was much wailing, and gnashing of teeth. The titanic force wrestled with the impossible object. The iceberg splintered, using its new shards as daggers in the ships belly. Oil and cargo spilled from the Titanic’s bow, like gore. Metal crushed ice, the ocean became a lime snow cone. The ship unstable, Cindy fell through levels of rust, and flesh, and salt water as the ship began to creak and crack apart, until she found herself alone with the waves. She cried for help.

There were no living remains about her, and no one to cry to. No one to care. Just below the surface, was the reflective ghoul of a replica of the greatest ship ever made.

The ocean fell still.

Cindy breathed in.

Cindy breathed out.

The wind whispered to her, and she drifted through waves the size of houses that scattered the wreckage of the cruise liner. Her hands pushed at suitcases, and a pair of high heels with the tag still on. Sea birds pried buttons and shoelaces and string from wet clothing for their nests on a small island somewhere too far to swim. She’d rather sink, anyway.

She watched sharks circle the bodies, and tear at limbs. To her dismay, they ignored her. She saw the seagull with the crystal eyes.

’This is the place,’ said the bird. ’We must go now.’

’What is your hurry?’ Cindy asked, solemnly.

’It is our duty! Duty is what you have to do even when you do not wish to do it. And you procrastinate, and you burn 15 hours on your Xbox, or watching Netflix. You do know what Netflix is don’t you, Cindy? And the cruelest thing about duty, Cindy, is that time always happens. It doesn’t matter if you look left, or you look right. Time always happens, and the only time that you can do anything is now.’

’I suppose you’re right,’ she said.

The bird flapped its wings at the water, and a great whirlpool formed about her, crushing and warping the remnants of the collision. As the maelstrom tugged at her hair and her legs, all Cindy could think was ’hold on to your shoes.’ But if she could save only one, how could she choose? The soft, inviting comfort of the blue slipper on her left foot? Or the pre-formed and aligned Nike jogger supporting her right? If she has no time to save both, how would she choose? Which shoe would hurt more to be kicked in the face by if worn by someone else, or which would be easier to adorn for a midnight snack or grievance committed for the sake of nature’s convenience? Who was she? A 5am Gatorade runner with a 168 GB iPod? Or an 11:36pm ice-cream imbiber while watching The Notebook, crying over how impossible it feels to get anything done on time? Her thoughts went round and round with her body in the whirlpool, the current pulling her clothes apart and corroding her skin. She passed through oil, skin, metal and she could feel debris cutting her flesh, salt water licking inside of her wounds. The sharks were noticing her now. What did I do? What did I do to you? Who was I once? What did I wear? How long has the ocean itself held this grudge against me? Against my very soul? How is it possible to escape the patient hatred of the ocean? Who am I? Do I deserve this? What did I do? Who am I? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

’The ocean doesn’t hate you, Cindy.’

The whirlpool stopped, but she was already far beneath the surface. She couldn’t breathe. And she couldn’t stay awake. A dugong was caressing Cindy’s hair, stroking her face.

’Why me?’ Cindy asked.

’Why you?’ Responded the dugong. ’Because you’re the one who needs it right now.’ Cindy scratched her head and breathes the water out of her lungs. ’For when you wake, little girl, you will find him and you will tell him everything you’ve seen and heard, then he will tell you his story. Together, you might find the key.’

’Who will I meet?’ But the dugong was already swimming away. ’Don’t leave! The key to what?’

The iceberg had melted away, and the waters around her were empty and still. Finally, after having resigned to keep living since the ocean seemingly refused to let her die, she gave in and closed her eyes, trying not to think about the door. She thought of something nice.

#

The cruise ship was docked and the docking ramp had been applied. Access to the deck was denied by a single chain. Orson stood on the deck next to a bucket with a mop in his hands. Headphones covered his ears and left an imprint on his black hair in a line across the top of his skull. The moon’s reflection kissed the wooden floors as water splashed from the bucket as Orson drowned the mop head, but he was careful not to get his pockets wet.

He was paid in cash. He didn’t have a visa. Or a bank account.

His brown hands worked the brown mop with the wooden handle along the brown wooden floor until it was polished enough that he could see his brown face reflected in the glaze. His back ached, but he worked on, focusing only on the slow, repeating words in his headphones. Thirsty. He said the word aloud. Are you thirsty?

’Are you thirsty?’ he asked the ocean.

Would you like a drink? He was beginning to make more connections with the language, but the tapes he’d stolen from the Salvation Army storefront didn’t translate the slang of this vast land. Since he’d landed ashore in the run down boat, and run most of the way south to this port city, it had felt like each force had tried to expel him from the country. He had run through lightning storms, hunted by stray dogs. While being chased by a large dog of a breed he’d never seen, he stumbled into a clearing where strange birds that made nests in the dirt flew at him in bombing runs. He had never been scared of things that flew until he saw those planes.

Politicians had labeled his kind ’aliens,’ but it was their harsh words and their ideals that seemed foreign to Orson. The only power that seemed to want to keep Orson here was that great blue expanse of water beyond the land.

Orson wondered if this job, the only that hadn’t sent him scampering away with threats of calling the Australian Border Force, was this strange lands way of saying that the only place he was welcome on these shores was on top of the water. And yet wet feet mix with the red dirt and make only mud, he thought. It was a cruel limbo. Not entitled to join the freedom he had craved, yet when he looked to the ocean for guidance it demanded he stay.

He had been on the water for a week when the waves had started speaking to him. Their thrashings and the rising of the sun had found words in his heart that no woman or man, save the lives lost in Syria, could have given justice to. On that top of that ocean, he had laid down the name of his God, and taken up praying to the tide. The ocean had rewarded him. In the spray of salt he had seen the face of a woman, but it was the squawk of the seagulls that gave him her name.

Cindy. Are you thirsty, Cindy?

He let the mop rest on the aluminium rail and looked out across the ocean towards the banks beyond the docks and the haze. He thought about her, and if she would help him. How would he repay her if she could? His soul was worth little to himself, and less, it seemed, to everyone else.

Down in the water a dolphin chirped and he looked down.

A woman was floating there, her body bumping the steel cruisers frame. When he saw that she was face down he ran.

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