Conference 7.286::digital

2836.0. "The Ship" by CSC32::PITT () Fri Dec 31 1993 18:32

    Thought for the day (yes, it's been a bad day)...
    
    Legend has it that....
    
    There was a ship. A HUGE ship with massive sails of blue and white 
    with a crew as skilled and loyal as any crew had ever been.   
    It was as tall and proud a ship as had ever set sail on any sea.
    
    Some called her unsinkable. 

    Then came the storm. A storm the like of which had never been seen before.
    The harsh winds battered the ship mercilessly.
    The waves climbed across her bow and tore at every corner, at
    every fiber, at every man, woman and child, demanding surrender.
    It seemed to rage on for days and days until finally, it gave way to a 
    peaceful sea and a glimmer of hope....
  
    And the ship survived, humbler, somehow smaller than it once was.
    There weren't many people left on her once proud deck.... No passengers.  
    Most of the crew members had either drowned trying to save her, 
    or were thrown overboard or just disappeared. Those who stayed
    behind had done so either out of loyalty or because the life preservers
    left for them were inadequete, and the raging waters too dangerous
    to leap out into unprotected. Afraid to leave, afraid not to, they
    stayed behind. 

    And there was the captain.  A 'survivor' of other shipwrecks, he spent 
    every waking minute trying to save his ship, his dieing ship, sometimes 
    wondering if a more willing crew might have made a difference, or if 
    listening to the passengers last desperate pleas might have helped.   
    The ship lost its cargo and became an empty shell of what it once was and
    could have been. 
    
    He plotted no new course for his ship, so consumed was he with simply
    keeping it afloat. It no longer had a destination.
    
    But it kept floating. Aimlessly. The ship was THE thing. 
    All of the Captains efforts went to keeping his ship floating.
    He didn't even notice as his remaining shipmates died off, one by
    one until he was finally alone, still trying to save his ship.
    The ship was everything to him. The ship was the only thing.
    
    Sadly, he never realized that, had he attended to all of the pieces,
    the Ship, the Crew, the Passengers, the once great symbol of hope
    and prosperity might have floated on forever,  chartering new waters and 
    opening new horizons. 
    Now, it was too late for that, and no one would be served
    but the ship itself, now an all consuming, wooden hulled monster that
    that had eaten its own crew and passengers....
    
    The great ship vanished.

 ........

    Some say it still floats to this day, lost at sea, somewhere inside of the
    Bermuda Triangle. Old sailors still wind tales of the blue and white sails
    that once ruled the waves. And it is told that on a quiet night, if you
    listen to the whispers of the wind on the water, you can hear the
    lonely cries of the Captain as he calls "all hands on deck". 

    Obviously, the drinking started early on New Year's Eve.
    
    Ensign Parker PT73.