A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter Fifteen
Titanic is streaming across the ocean at a
rather slow/fast speed, in the dusk light, as if lit by the embers of a giant
fire. As the ship looms around the bow. Jack, right at the apex of the bow
railing. He’s looking down at the water. The wind is blowing through his hair.
He is in great sadness. Rose is coming up to him.
Oh please don’t turn me away, Jack. Okay,
here goes. "Hello, Jack."
He turns, with the same statement, only
lighter.
"I changed my mind." With a smile.
He smiles at her, his eyes drinking her in.
Her cheeks are red with the chill wind, and her eyes sparkle. Her hair blows
wildly about her face.
"They said you might be up--"
"Shh. Come here." He hand stretches
out to her, and she takes it and pulls her forward to him.
"Now close your eyes." She
protests. "Go on." She does. "Now step up." She steps up,
and he steps up too. "Now, hold onto the railing. Keep your eyes close.
Don’t peek."
"I’m not."
"Step up onto the rail." He helps
her, by holding her waist. "Hold on. Hold on. Keep your eyes closed."
Rose laughs nervously, he laughs too.
"Do you trust me?"
"I trust you."
He presses her gently to the rail, standing
behind her. Then he takes her two wrists and raises them until she is standing
with her arms outstretched on each side. Rose is going along with him, with a
concern look, only in a good way. What is he doing? When he lowers his hands,
her arms stay up like wings. He puts his hands on her waist to steady her.
"All right. Open your eyes."
She opens them, and gasps. There is nothing
in her field of vision, but water. It’s like there is no ship under them at
all, just the two of them soaring. The Atlantic unrolls toward her, a hammered
copper shield under a dusk sky. There is only the wind and the hiss of the
water fifty feet below.
"I’m flying! Jack!"
He joins her in putting his hands into hers,
and they are both flying.
"Come Josephine in my flying machine
going up she goes, up she goes." Jack singing softly in her ear, and she
laughs.
Their fingertips gently touching, then their
fingers intertwine. Moving slowly, their fingers caress through and around each
other like the bodies of two lovers.
Are we soul mates? She thought for a moment,
then she felt Jack tip his face forward into her blowing hair, letting the
scent of her wash over him, until his cheek is against her ear, and holding her
tightly. He starts kissing her face and neck, and then he lowers their arms to
her stomach. She turns her head until her lips are near his. He kissed her,
wrapping his arm around her from behind, and they kiss like this with her head
turned and tilted back, surrendering to him, to the emotion, to the inevitable.
They kiss, slowly and tremulously, and then
with building passion. Jack, Rose, and the ship seem to merge into one force of
power and optimism, lifting her, buoying her forward on a magical journey,
soaring onward into a night without fear.
In the crow’s nest, high above and behind
them, lookout Frederick Fleet nudges his mate, Reginald Lee, pointing down at
the figures in the bow.
"Wish I had those bleeding
binoculars."
Jack and Rose embracing at the bow rail,
dissolves slowly away, leaving the ruined bow of the wreck.