Titanic: True Love Forever

Chapter 17: Grief

My pace quickened as I walked out of the restaurant, going from a somewhat flustered walk to a final, almost leaping stride. The hand that carried my dress gripped the ankle-length hem hard, and the other hand didn't hesitate to vigorously wipe my mouth a few times, just as a polite hello between international friends; hugging and nibbling on a strange man could simply become my black history.

Seeing the grand staircase without any hesitation I chose to head down, the ill-fitting of my shoes making it very difficult. I stepped on the oak stairs and almost rolled down them a couple times before I finally made it to the single flight of stairs on the E deck, which I scurried down.

There was no way to get back to the upper decks, and I had to find a new place to hide in the time it took for all of them to react and come back.

And I was pretty sure that the next time Calhokli saw me, he was going to strangle me to death, the kind of death that couldn't be stopped. I saw someone come around the corner on the other side of the elevator doors; it was Frost, the ship's fitter, who had changed into a suit, and was clutching his gloves as he was about to head up to the top of the D deck, when he saw me he was surprised and said, "What brings you down here, Miss Emily?"

Did he think my room was really on the luxurious BC deck?

"Hello Mr. Frost, did you find the whistle?" I flashed a wide smile, my feet still maintaining that speed forward.

"Not yet, hurts my brain, I have to rely on my booming voice to call the workers now." Frost was diverted by me at once, and he said in annoyance, "Did the cleaners really get rid of it?"

"That's a shame, you'll always find it." My smile stayed the same, my speed stayed the same, and I came to him like a gust of wind, and with a sudden flick of my hand to his head, I pulled out the butterfly barrette, and in a flash a full head of long hair cascaded down his face. Then I shoved the butterfly hair clip into his suit pocket, a coherent and quick action that barely gave the other man any time to respond.

Frost watched as I stuffed the hair clip into his pocket and asked suspiciously, "What's this?"

Without turning my head back, I was already walking into the corridor he'd just turned out of, shouting loudly in the process, "Please, Mr. Frost, return it to Ms. Rose Bookout in Upper Class on Level B."

"Wait, that's a special corridor for the engine department, you can't go in there." Frost rushed after me as he worriedly blurted out to me.

What do I care, I run to the end of the corridor and push open the door and dive in, behind me the dedicated Frost runs over but can't find which door I've entered for a second, so I can only come around the corridor a few times before finally whining a few times in a helpless whisper, "God, young ladies are so energetic nowadays."

I waited for him to leave before stepping out from behind the door and proceeded to continue down that corridor to the turbine department. In the middle of it, I encountered a couple of coal-covered, oiled-up engine department workers who looked at me inexplicably.

The ship's corridors were a damned maze, and it was as if I were floating around a two-thousand-meter-long bend in shoes that didn't fit me. There seemed to be a slight tremor coming from the deck, like the calm shudder before a volcanic eruption. I continued down the increasingly spartan white corridor, which no longer had carpeting or ornately styled light fixtures, and looked up to see the white steel gas transmission pipelines that were not covered by paneling. I saw doors on either side of the corridor and opened one of them at random, a choking smell tickling my throat.

I stepped inside and a wave of hot air steamed up into the room, which was a vertical descent down an iron ladder passageway.

Third class couldn't get back for now, and there was no way to mix time in the upper class, so I had to head down to reach the cargo hold at the bottom of the deck. As long as I avoided the inspections of the cargo hold staff, I was basically safe.

Karl Hockley that unlucky guy can't be in a tuxedo, climb from the G deck to the cargo hold level to look for me, it's not like he's looking for his father's murderer.

I reached up and scratched my hair back a few times, then squeezed my hands together, grabbed the railing, and headed down the iron stairs. The temperature rises violently, and there's a choking smell of burning coal, and before I reach the bottom of the iron ladder, I hear a noisy rumble, as if the Titanic's engines are trembling madly right under my feet.

I saw that the bottom of the iron ladder was full of coal slag, and I hope the heroine didn't mind that the shoes I returned were the color of black coal as I preened and jumped down the last few rungs of the iron ladder. A cart loaded with coal pushes past me quickly, the stoker of the cart can hardly believe his eyes and then keeps looking at me as he yells angrily, "Miss, how did you get here, this is no place for you."

The huge boiler fire burned ferociously, a bunch of stokers hurriedly shoveled coal into the boiler with shovels, the firelight reddened their black ash-stained faces, and the head stoker yelled at the top of his voice through the rowdy boiler room, "Do your job properly, go on, go on, go on, hurry up and get the hell out of ...... how did you get in here, get out of here right now. "

He turned around and saw me standing next to the iron ladder with my skirt in my hand, almost yelling in a frenzy.

I innocently looked at them, suddenly my right hand lightly touched the top of my head, my body upright vainly did a western bowing etiquette. I smiled and said, "Excuse me, gentlemen." After saying that, I quickly ran inside the boiler room, I don't know how many boiler rooms this is, the Titanic has a special passage for the boiler room workers to pass through, this group of engine department workers in charge of the ship's drive is like the black legion in this ship, no guests can see them.

"Wait, you can't go that way, it's dangerous." The head stoker waved his shovel strongly and warned loudly towards my back.

I darted past them, the fire snake spitting out of the boiler at a temperature so high it burned away any hypothermia the surface of my skin had brought in from above. Finding the boiler room proved that I was nearing the bottom of the cargo hold, and as long as Calhokli wasn't using the same powers that had captured his fiancée to get me, the average person wouldn't have thought I'd make it here.

For no one but the ship's fitter had seen me walk into the passageway reserved for workers.

Coal produced thick smoke steaming all around me as I ran forward smiling at the workers I encountered, "Hello, excuse me, good job, big brother."

One sweaty stoker even politely put down his shovel, smiled and nodded at me.

I kept running along the boiler compartment until I saw a white hatch, opening it a silence hit me as if it was an illusion, behind me was still the noise of the boiler room's heat, the barn where the goods were placed was quiet as if it were the depths of the ocean.

I closed the hatch and stepped into the cargo hold, which was piled high with cargo to be carried across the ocean, outside the crates were hanging nets bound with thick ropes. I rubbed my hands together as I leaned against one of the cargo crates and looked up at the top of the ship, having just come out of the boiler room for a moment I felt the cold temperature outside, my gloves had come off because I had to eat, I hoped that the waiter in the dining room would give it to lost and found and return it to the original owner.

Leaning against the box to slow down for a while, I finally breathed calmly, slowly walking past a face of brand new French-made Renault vintage cars, I came to a relatively empty place. Bending over to take my shoes off and put them to one side, I lifted up my own feet, the hem of my skirt sliding down my thighs as I did so, my feet were covered in tiny cuts, some caused by running around barefoot in Southampton Harbor, while the torn skin on my feet, freshly glistening with blood, was the result of the ill-fitting shoes and the rubbing of the kind of shoes I had been running in.

Putting my feet back on the ground, I looked around, my ears just recovering from the cacophonous ringing there in the boiler room, and heard the muffled roar of the engine.

It was Wednesday, April 10th, the day the Titanic officially set sail.

The world's largest mode of transportation in this day and age, the never-sinking ship of dreams. I can almost see that no one, no force can stop it.

Until late at night on the 14th, when it hit an iceberg.

I stare around me in silence as everything here all but disappears, including the upper-class dining room, the flames in the boiler compartment. The mental excitement quieted down and was replaced by a dull sadness.

Slowly, I exhaled, letting out that unbearable depression in my heart. I knew no one would believe me even if I said it, and even if someone did, unless that person was Smith or Ismay, who could stop the Titanic.

With my hand over my chest and my head hanging low, my eyes half-closed, I suddenly realized that I hadn't really danced the whole scene earlier. Enchanted as it was, all the cells in my body were spiking, dancing only by the eyes to make my body jealous. There was still some time before dawn, so maybe I could practice my old dance before I went to bed.

There's no music here except for the sound of the engine.

But for me, the melody of the music has long since been incorporated into my body, and even if I were left alone in the silence of the entire universe, I could find the kind of rhythmic rhythms to match my body in the way I raise my hands and feet.

My hands moved away from my chest in an extremely slow and graceful manner, and my feet, which were still stained with blood, began to stand on tiptoe gently. I hung my head slightly, my body was slowly moving upwards, the strength of the backs of my feet supported my body upwards, my hands were also moving upwards, this movement was light, so light that it turned into a feather, even if your bones were wailing and screaming in pain, the skin outside of your bones looked as if it had no strength at all.

I began to change the calmness in my eyes as my heart seized up inside my chest, the feelings that had lingered from the restaurant earlier brewing and festering once more. Tears can't really flow when you're actually dancing, but the sadness is conveyed a thousand times over through the language of the body.

The toes went up to almost the same level as a ballerina in pointe shoes, and the hands went up palms pressed together, finally stopping to intertwine their fingers with each other.

It is a static dance position - you are dying. A woman who is in love with a man.

All far away and across, snow on the streets of England, a cruise ship representing death, Jack and Rose, the Statue of Goddess in New York.

I am dying and I am in love with you.

Abruptly my still, upward body collapses, my feet inch down to my knees, my arms suddenly tighten around myself, my sagging head buried in my arms.

Holding myself tight, kneeling before love. It is a mourning, she faces death, she is abandoned.

It is a mourning that is covered in ice, and the fire is quenched cold.

I tilt my head back and can feel the muscles in my neck tremble. Hands limit back, fingertips sliding tenderly through the air as if caressing the skin of a loved one. Everything in the cargo hold disappeared from my sight, and there was nothing but silent darkness in my mournful, melancholic eyes.

The darkness turned to emptiness as I jumped up and my feet touched the ground again. I am the only one here, and I am my own audience.

The feelings in my heart change, sadness turns to warm sweetness, a woman in love with a man, in the season of rosemary bloom, in the years when the stars dot the night sky. The movements of my body became deft and with fire-like strength, I began to spin, my long skirt blooming into a furious blossom at my feet.

My breath drives the muscles of my body into control, and my body softens again like a pure lake, my passion gradually dying out.

A woman, in love with a man.

And death, takes him.

Grief returned to my limbs, and I breathed lightly and shallowly, reaching feebly for something to embrace as my waist began to bend backward.

Finally I embraced myself and lay down on the floor, looking up quietly.

It was a kind of mourning.