Archive of Our Own ^beta

Love hits you unexpectedly, sometimes. If anyone would know, that would be me.

I was just going my usual way; something I had literally done a hundred times before. Sailing, light as a breeze, to my destination. Loaded with promises of a brighter future, with dreams and hopes of a new life for many. Inebriated with the lavish divertissements I had provided my passengers over the seven-day trip to America.

You see, I was the pride and joy of my country. A jewel of engineering, the envoy of modern progress. 

I was the SS Andrea Doria, for God’s sake. Sleek. Elegant. Unsinkable… 

… Little did I know, that on a warm starry night of July, my bright career – and existence – would come to a tragic end. All because of a momentous, accidental encounter.

I suppose we all have the romantic tendency to see the hand of fate at work, when we can’t make sense of unpredictable, life-changing events. “It was meant to be”, we tell ourselves, wistfully looking back at the past. Rationalising the errors of our ways. But, believe me, MS Stockholm and I weren’t meant to meet. Everything was designed, and rightfully so, to keep us apart. We were going in opposite directions, in fact.

Was it the fault of some cursory carelessness? Of the sum of unforeseeable conditions? Alas, it doesn’t matter now, and it didn’t matter then: by the time we crossed paths, there was nothing we could do to undo our misdeeds.

MS Stockholm hit me, and I crumbled under her massive deadweight tonnage. 

A fatal kiss.

Granted, I should have been the strongest one – perhaps, I overlooked my own weaknesses. And like many an intense, sweeping love, she didn’t announce herself before striking me in my tenderest spot. 

After that, I was left battered and adrift. A shadow of my former self. Inevitably destined to go down in history as an egregious disaster.

Oh, I cried for help. I did, and some answered at the best of their possibilities. 

Among them, which I’ll be forever grateful for, SS Île de France: a dignified old-guard of the seas. In what can be described only as an heroic effort, they rushed to my rescue. A light in the dark, they tried to salvage what they could.

But, like most rebound stories, it didn’t work out in the end. I had too much baggage and too many wounds to be saved. Last I’ve heard, they pursued a career in the film industry. All my best wishes to them.

And MS Stockholm? Where was she, you might ask? She mumbled some excuse – something about her anchors getting stuck – and deserted me. And of course, she didn’t even take responsibility for the wreck she had caused. She’s still out there, somewhere, like nothing happened. Probably (hopefully!) ashamed of her wrongdoings, she changed her name and reinvented herself.

I’m afraid there isn’t a happy ending to this story: while my name lives on as a legend,  and as a cautionary tale; and sometimes I get visited in the hopes of glory and riches… I found my eternal rest in the embrace of the sea. 

Dreaming of all the travels I could have had.

Weeping for all that was lost, on a warm starry night of July.