[ingress forward]
I walk in secret worlds of death.
Sights few ever imagine.
Sights fewer still will ever see.
Here is a glimpse into my world:
There exists a submarine graveyard. Decommissioned naval vessels tied together side by side and the whole floating nest anchored to a cement pier. In this world, where dead submarines float awaiting the day of final disposal and the recycling of their parts, miracles happen. Life flourishes. The sides of these submarines function as a habitat similar to tide pools. Sunlight revealing what lives on the rounded hull just below the surface of the water. I breathe deep and I recognize there is beauty in dead things. In the death of a hulking machine of war, life flourishes.
[the overboard]
These machines are draped in the regal robes of marine life. Stark whites – anemones of all shapes and sizes. Some wrinkled and round like brains attached to steel. Some are giant mushrooms, three feet long, the thickness of a baseball bat, with caps gently undulating in the water. Vibrant oranges, deep reddish purples – sea stars. Massive, reaching two feet across and legs thicker than my hand spread wide. Gray barnacles and colonies of black-blue mussels, opening and closing in time to unheard music. This is the death shroud of a submarine. This shroud is a sewn patchwork of life in delicate patterns, colors, and textures. Nary an inch of the hull is left exposed.
[the topside]
Above water, the sea birds and mammals have claimed these machines as their home. Nests of cormorants are built into the sails and they stand at attention with wings spread wide, drying in the sun on the mooring ropes crisscrossing from ship to ship. The seagulls scream and laugh and litter the topsides of these metal whales with the shells of mussels, clams, crustaceans, and snails. Detached crab legs and the digested remnants, a bright pink or dark green, make a slurry and crunch under my boots. Harbor seals and sea lions sunbathe on the slanting surface of these submarines. Above, as below, is a place of life.
[a belly full]
In the belly of these steel whales, all systems lay quiet. The only sounds are the echoing creaks of a hull in the tide pulling mooring lines. There’s a sense of all that was given and lost here. The stories are preserved and given opportunity to be digested inside the belly. These stories are of honor and pride. Service and sacrifice. Love and loneliness. Hushed laughter and breathless silence. Friendship and fear. Smiles and suicide. The creak of metal whispers of the dead man in the freezer beside the chicken dinner. The deck plates still bear the weight of countless footsteps. The air itself is marked with the permanent lingering scent of sweat, hot pipes, and chemically filtered recycled breathing air. Memories are etched in steel of shared bunks always warm and pillows that smell like someone else’s breath. The bulkheads are a picture frame holding a family portrait of the crews who served here and once their service is over, may never speak to each other again. Their stories fill the bellies of dead machines and they are alive in a way just like the outside. Countless stories which will never be spoken aloud.
Can never be spoken aloud.
Should never be spoken aloud.
Must never be spoken aloud.
Here, I feel, and sometimes see, the souls of those who continue to show up to their duty stations. The valves don’t open as they wrench on them. The panels don’t alight as the buttons are pressed. The ballasts may blow, but not at their behest. I trust they will remember themselves one day.
[a remembrance]
You are not trapped in this place. These stories are weighty and may feel like shackles, but are easily slipped clean off. You are not left in these rusting husks as a prison. I see you. I remember you and you are here to remember yourself. Remember there is no steel bulkhead that can hold you. Remember there is no life or death that can hold you from who you are. See the miracle happening now transmuting this machine to life? Just look and see what I see here, and allow these memories, these stories, these souls to be transmuted as well.
[egress aftward]
There is a hush of reverence in this place. A silence that is deeper than the sounds on the surface. Deeper than the wind and the constant deep thumping barks of sea lions. Deeper than the flap of the sea bird taking flight from the water. Deeper than the pungent smell and squelching slap of seagull droppings an inch thick across the pier. Deeper than the salt breeze and fine mist of sea spray. Deeper than the brows bouncing like rope bridges and creaking all metal on metal. I stand here, occupying the space between the vibrant life and death in this graveyard. I bow to the silence and I consciously break it. I sing aloud. I sing for the living and the dead. I sing for the snow capped mountains in the distance, I sing for the gently lapping waters.
I sing for it all. I am honored to be an audience to this. Standing in the Great Between. In this world, where dead submarines float awaiting the day of final disposal and the recycling of their parts, miracles happen. Life flourishes. And in this place, against all odds, my soul has chosen to flourish too. // SAM HURST
