‘Titanic (1997)’ by Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe

The man who has been holding on
tight arms aching muscles burning
clinging to that cold silver railing for
dear life, finally lets go and drops –
through the air, as a stone into a well
(because he is not weightless, and
because – we were taught in school –
the earth loves to possess a thing with mass
to stake its greedy claim, to swallow it whole)
in his evening wear: black jacket, bowtie,
thin, straight legs in tailored trousers
resembling the elegant stem of a wineglass,
the inverted-triangle-shape of his head,
his head which now makes contact
with the railing on the opposite side
with a glacial crack, his skull splits open
but this is not a sound that can be heard
because an actual glacier is yawning beneath,
moaning like a humpback whale in heat,
like a mother seal in terrible anger
crashing towards you at terrible speed:
so this moment is silent, you can only see
the man ricocheting off the bar of steel
and you can only imagine the sound,
which in the film is accentuated by
the howls and cries of primal fear
raw wails of people plummeting to death;
where only a few minutes before, the orchestra
kept playing, as deck chairs and parasols,
all manner of shoes, tables and beds, soaps resting
on the edges of porcelain basins, slid across the
sloping deck; now this gentle tilt has given way to
mass hysteria, full-scale panic and the looming
monolith of craggy ice is cleaving and the
sheer gravity of it all is so much to take
that it ends up being almost comical.
I cover the side of my face with my hand
to suppress a smile that is teasing the skirt
of my mouth, and I wonder about that man
and if it were myself, if I were there first
parachuting like a Navy SEAL from above, then
somersaulting through that short breadth of air,
skydiver in slow motion, if I were rushing towards
the embrace of that frigid, reckless, hard-eyed ocean,
I wonder when would be the precise moment
I would decide that now’s the time to close my eyes.

From issue #8: spring/summer 2019

About the Author
Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe’s work has appeared in international publications including T: The New York Times Style Magazine, TED, Qulture, NZSA Journal, Doha News, Dissident Voice, Culture Unplugged, The New Indian Express & literary magazines including Acorn, ARDOR, B O D Y and StepAway Magazine. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.