QUEEN OF THE SEVEN SEAS
                    (A TITANIC SHORT STORY)

 Deep in the darkness of a time that has passed sleeps an elegant beauty. She was made of iron, steel, and wood and covered in white. Her builders said she would be Queen of the Seven Seas and her sisters her Court of Honor. Her captain boasted that she was unsinkable and the world believed him. Then came the faithful day when she sounded her good bye, that was heard for miles around. People came to leave their past, and to start a new life, and others came just for the ride. The rich, and the poor fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, walked her decks caught up in her beauty and glory. No one saw the darkness for she was on her throne with her captain at her helm with a final blast of her mighty whistles the largest ever seen her small soldiers pulled her from the bearth and then she was gone from the mist of people waving good bye with smiles and laughter and tears of joy on their faces, but if only they could see the darkness rolling in like the fog.
Up on her masts flew the flags, one said “White Star Line” in which she was the Queen, on the next “Union Jack of Great Britain for which she was born upon her shore, the last a “Star Spangled Banner” of a country not yet seen. As her Flags flapped in the wind people danced in her ballroom and music flowed through the air. There was no hurry or worry for she was Queen. The people danced above while those down below were shoveling coal to make her go. Dressed in black for there was no glory, steam hissed, and boilers hummed and the turbines turned and her screws churned that water to foam.
The captain in his best up on her bridge sipped tea as sea gulls circled. People walked on her decks and sat in chairs, only the finest for the White Star Line of three classes of people, three worlds apart. On the top was the rich eating off of china dressed in gold, drinking the finest French wines from cut crystal glasses only the best money could buy. Then there was the 2nd class of people workers, artians, ministers And the traders to them they were on top of the world. They were on the greatest ship that mankind had ever built, for 2nd class on her was better than first class on the others, for she was Queen of the Seven Seas. Then there was 3rd class down deep in the bottom, the poor and nameless, that wanted to leave the old world for a new life that others wanted to be reunited with family and friends and then there were the ones who wanted to bury the past forever. To them 3rd class seemed like a paradise and it was to them. Every-thing new, clean and white. Lights lit their way down the halls to safety and some could not believe there was hot and cold water, pure and simple but beautiful china plates sterling cups for there was no tin on the White Star Line. One ship three classes all swept into a dream, and no one saw the darkness as it rolled in like agleem. Her captain wanted speed her builder wanted more, and the Chairman wanted a Record in the end of the ones who wanted it all and got none. For she was a ship of destiny. She sailed like she was part of the sea moving at 22 knots. Her bow cutting the waves like a knife and her stern a wake of foam, made her builder say that God could not sink this ship. Death rode the final sunset for on April 14th,1912 She met her fate head on for she in her hurry and in glory struck an iceberg. Her iron cracked and the unsinkable ship began to sink and all three of her classes became one in the dance of death. As of now she sleeps at the bottom of the North Atlantic, in her grave, the Queen has not been forgotten, for she is Titanic and will all ways be the Queen of the Seven Seas.
 

Stephen Wallace Warrington
Sept. 1st 1998