Guesswork by Martha Cooley

Author:Martha Cooley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2017-01-31T05:00:00+00:00

My thoughts go to the two victims whose bodies have yet to be found: an Indian musician and a Sicilian woman.

Did they try to leave but fail for reasons no one, including themselves, could ever know? Or did the whole thing—the impact, the drift toward shore, the increasing list of each deck—catch them totally unawares, unable to react fast enough? Were they napping when it all began? Listening to music with headphones? Or did they attempt to get off the boat in the company of others who, fleeing, weren’t capable of helping them, or figured they were following right behind, or believed someone else was with them, making sure they’d be all right?

Then I think about the survivors. More than 4,200 people who, a few hours before the encounter with the rock, had dined in one of the Concordia’s restaurants, or played a game of tennis, or indulged in a Jacuzzi session, or had their hair or nails done, or seen a film, or listened to live music as they were conveyed toward the coast of a little island off Tuscany that they’d never heard of—all these passengers who, post-encounter, wandered in a daze through a town with two main streets, a church, a few hotels, a dozen or so places to eat and drink, some shops selling trinkets and sweatshirts and local wine, a couple of touring agencies and real estate offices, a butcher, several ice cream shops, and a small exhibit room of a man who makes wonderfully detailed models of boats . . .

What did those survivors take away from their few hours in Giglio Porto—what sensations? Will their memories blur or cancel what happened between the moment of impact and their return to safe ground? What does the human body retain and recall of such phenomena as a cruise ship bowing to a coastline, bumping into a rock, tipping over, then glub-glubbing to one side while thousands of people scramble to get off it?

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