Week 2, Title: Ice-water

 

There’s a boy in the ballroom throwing up ice-water,

Creaking floor-boards squelch with water-sodden feet,

The heat dial’s turned up, but their hands turn blue,

The captain says- It’s a sickness.

 

Everyone on the lower decks is scrabbling at their throats,

Everyone on the higher decks trying to warm screeching limbs,

They turn around, heading back for land,

The captain insists- It’s a sickness.

 

The ship hits the shore rocky,

Its crew barely alive enough to steer,

There are bodies in the cabins, grey and frozen,

The captain mutters, incoherent, incessant- It’s a sickness, a sickness, a sickness.

 

Those who can scrabble onto land, dragging with them those who can’t,

Lost fingers and toes and hands and feet and lives in the debris,

And no sickness to be found.

The captain, voice desperate and reedy, teeth-chattering, hands in his hair, shouts- It’s a sickness.

 

The old stories come out soon enough,

A ghost-addled ship, the captain bought for cheap,

New paint-job, new name, new life, all warnings forgotten,

The captain lives, cold lingers on his skin, forever haunted.