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Once upon a time an ocean liner that had sailed the seas for 244 years hit an iceberg, ripping a hole in the hull and causing it to begin to sink. As the ship's bells sounded, passengers began to debate the situation.
About a third were not concerned. Some loudly declared "No hole!" and went back to their berths. Others reveled in the rush of ice cold sea water consuming them.
They proclaimed they were finally free of the steel that had long protected them from the elements. Wasn't the captain a genius, they asked, for giving them their freedom?
The remaining two thirds of the passengers assembled on the deck of the doomed liner. "We should man the lifeboats," many said. "And we should use any other flotation devices available to save ourselves."
"Now wait a minute," said a group from first class. "There's a ship that passes by every four years. We'll just wait for that to come and rescue us." To the dismay of their fellow sailors, they blocked access to the lifeboats from everyone else.
The passengers discovered that the captain had intentionally rammed the iceberg to bring down the ship. But when they asked first class and the crew to take the captain in irons, their pleas were ignored. Some even went below and helped the captain make the hole bigger.
The captain and his closest crew had been working to dismantle the radio that would allow passengers to call the other ship that passed by every four years. In fact, they were plotting with pirates to take that ship's captain prisoner and accuse him of fake crimes.
And yet the first class members continued to insist everyone wait for the other ship. "This is crazy," said some passengers. "How dare you question us?" retorted the people from first class and their supporters. "You can't mutiny now, with our rescue ship just weeks away."
These first class passengers began to look more like some other members of first class, who when the ship first struck the iceberg also said "No hole!" and returned to their seven-course dinners. It was clear they were in league with the captain, and some even thought he was God.
Then, as the ship took on more water, a fire broke out on board. The captain grabbed blankets and began to fan its flames. Some crew members stood idly by, saying, "Nothing to worry about here."
This was strange because other crew members and some people from first class had snatched up all the fire extinguishers and were selling them back to passengers, at many times what they were worth.
There was a fire chief on board who confirmed the fire was indeed bad. He had many decades of fighting fires, but the captain said he knew more about fires. He said the fire came from a distant ship. The captain's supporters said the fire chief may have actually started it.
Some people who had welcomed the crash with the iceberg began chanting "No fire! No fire!" When other passengers urged them to stay away from the conflagration, they walked directly into it, grabbing embers and tossing them into corners of the ship, spreading flames everywhere.
Passengers from steerage, who had been forced to keep working the kitchens and laundry rooms as the ship sank, tried to move above deck to safety. They knew the fire was dangerous.
But the captain, his supporters, and the "No fire!" people pushed them back below deck again into the flames. "We need to keep the ship going at all costs," they said. "You're just being lazy."
Each time the steerage sailors, especially those who did not have white skin, tried to reach safety or alert people to the conditions below, they were held back. Some were put in pens in the ships bowels, while others were wrestled to the ground. "I can't breathe," they cried.
The captain had been oppressing people in steerage for his entire tenure, in a long tradition of poor treatment, but the fire brought things to a head. Soon, other angry passengers joined with the steerage class, demanding that the same laws must apply for everyone on the ship.
The captain called to all the people with guns on board to rally to his side. These people became violent in their efforts to control the steerage class. It reminded some passengers and people who heard news of the ship from afar of an evil captain and his soldiers years ago.
As the ship continued to take on water and the fire raged out of control, some first class people still insisted everything was fine. They knew everything was not fine, but they thought they could jump off the ship whenever it suited them, taking fine china and silks with them.
Many first class people were afraid of the captain and his stinging words, which he broadcast daily over the ship's intercom. They also feared the pirates who helped the captain engineer the iceberg crash. They had had dealings with pirates before and knew their wicked ways.
And some persisted in their plan to wait for the rescue ship, even though the radio was barely working and the captain's lieutenant said the rescue ship's captain and his mates would be in jail soon. They talked of all the wonderful and magical things they would do once rescued.
The people who so long ago had wanted to use the lifeboats wondered what the ship's officers thought of their oaths to protect passengers. Surely it was time to stop siding with the captain, tend to the fire's flames, and save everyone from going into the drink.
They knew no one in first class would come to their aid and they would have to save themselves. They worried the officers, who could have helped them, would continue to say they were "just following orders" from the captain because they had seen that happen before.
What might the captain do before the rescue ship arrived or the people overcame their onboard oppressors? What if a terrible storm hit their ship or pirates invaded? What if the rescue ship managed to reach them but the captain refused to allow it to come alongside?
The world watched the sinking, burning ship with unease. If that ship went under, who would protect them?
And the good passengers captive on board watched too, trying to write their own endings, hoping fate was on their side because it seemed no one else was.
And the good passengers captive on board watched too, trying to write their own endings, hoping fate was on their side because it seemed no one else was.
