The Explorer's Apprentice

54:An Endless Sleep

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte lies face down in her bed, smothering her face against the scratchy blanket.  Her entire pillow is soaked from her tears, and her heart is scattered around her in a thousand miniscule pieces.  She’s certain that she’s never, ever going to get up.  The last few hours of her life have been a complete roller coaster;  her life nearly jerking to a stop, only to start again at full speed…and just when she’s trusting gravity to keep her buckled in, she’s thrown out to die.  That’s how she feels: completely dead.  Not one fiber of her being has reason to stay alive.  She has a million reasons to be gone from this earth forever, and not one to keep fighting.

                        Snores fill the cabin, the everlasting scent of alcohol hanging in the air like a poisonous gas.  Somehow, it doesn’t bother Charlotte anymore.  Nothing can bother her now.  After the most horrible situation humanly possible has been played out before her, everything looks like a beautiful summer day.  Even lying hopelessly in a cabin filled with drunk, drooling people is more idealistic than having to see Eli’s face, and know that she can never hold it to hers ever again.

                        Just picturing his face in her head is like a thousand daggers.  His gorgeous blue eyes, how they sparkled when he looked at her, is enough to drive Charlotte insane.  He’ll never look at her that way again.  She takes a handful of her tangled brown hair and yanks on it with all her might, hoping that the physical pain will drown out some of the emotional.

                        Almost as if the ship itself could feel her distress, the Titanic begins to shudder.  The bunks shake nervously, and Charlotte instinctively reaches out to grab onto the mattress, as if this would stop anything from happening if the bed tipped.  A few voices grumble from below, swearing about what on earth could be happening.  Charlotte vaguely wonders what her father would be saying if he was here, but remembers that she doesn’t care.  He’s been absent from the cabin since Charlotte collapsed into the bed, and she’s ecstatic about it.  The mark on her cheek remains, and she doesn’t want to deal with him.  She doesn’t have the strength.

                        The boat stops shaking, just as abruptly as it started.  Nothing’s out of place, other than the sleeping men, who are now sitting up in their bunks, looking around worriedly, like their eyes may show them something they don’t already know.  Like the source of the shaking could be in their tiny cabin.

                        “Maybe it’s a stampede,” some idiot below says.

                        Charlotte doesn’t understand how people can be so stupid.  There’s no such thing as earthquakes on boats, and there’s nothing to be stampeding on the upper decks.  They must’ve hit a rock, or an iceberg.  It suits her just fine.  After all, they’re on the unsinkable Titanic, the boat of dreams.  It was built to resist stuff like this, and so Charlotte doesn’t bother to panic.  Although several people below get up and exit the room, she stays in her bed.  It’s a waste of energy to stand.

                        Even if something did go terribly wrong, Charlotte thinks as she shoves her face further into her pillow, it’s not as if I want to live.  Right here is where I’d stay, in this bunk.  There’s no point in putting up a fight.  She curls the blanket around her and hopes to fall asleep into dreams of simple things that don’t make her brain hurt.  Simple things like sugar plums, fairies, and characters in Shakespeare brought to life; not sinking ships, heartbreaking boys, or abusive fathers.  She wants childish dreams for the first time in so, so long.  I just want to fall asleep, Charlotte decides, and never wake up to reality.