I’ve a sudden fancy to share this one again, from a few years ago.
Shipwreck Museum
It was a fascinating place,
with wide but low corridors,
pilfer-proof displays behind glass
and subdued lighting.
A bit like visiting an aquarium.
There were anchors,
ragged lumps of decking
and ancient ships’ timbers,
some crusted with barnacles,
others honeycombed with holes.
Half-rotted leather luggage,
sturdy steamer trunks,
piratical wooden chests.
A bundle of longbow staves,
tied together centuries earlier
which never reached France.
Ragged bundles of clothing,
animal pelts.
Rusted muskets and cannons,
barrels of loose shot,
hefty grape-shot bundled for use,
a few tattered flags.
Swords and cutlasses.
Steel and fibreglass debris
from more recent wrecks,
and printed plaques telling the details,
the date, time, and circumstances.
The numbers lost…
Then suddenly it wasn’t abstract,
no longer ‘just history’.
The fascination with facts overwhelmed
by the choking feel of drowning,
a blind panic,
a frantic need to escape.
I shoved through the visitors,
scrambled back out over the turnstile,
pulse hammering,
apologising for not following the arrows.
I stood in the sunshine,
gasping, and slowly calmed down.
The man in the kiosk,
a weather-beaten old chap
in a fisherman’s smock,
looked at me thoughtfully.
“That’s alright, Sir.
It takes some people that way.”
Gyppo