A Cruise Ship for the Disappeared

Awaiting the Declassification of Documents at Some Point in the Near or Distant Future

The cruise ship washed ashore, tipped sidelong, keel sunning itself beneath the cold November sky. The ship was a city block of aluminum alloy and wedged between two stone jetties. The area was roped off with caution tape. I explained to the police officer working security that I was the insurance claim inspector assigned to the case. Big case, the cop said, looking over his shoulder to the boat’s bulk. He lifted the tape, letting me through. I’m not sure he would have if I’d told him the second half of the story. How my wife was on the ship when it went missing, dropping off radar three years ago. I left that part out.

The boat appeared to have just left port. The bleached hull hadn’t aged, the festival colors of her name still vibrant as the day they’d set out. The news reports on every channel didn’t lie. 3000 people swallowed by the sea. My wife, Linda, among them. Her friends too. It was a bachelorette party. Linda didn’t want to go. Hated the open ocean, the threat of foodborne illness, the environmental sin, but she couldn’t turn down her best friend.

She said she’d send a postcard when they reached their island port, but the postcard never arrived.

A rope ladder hung from the railing above. I climbed hand over hand, rough fiber harsh beneath my palm. My boss said it would be hard to navigate the deck with the halls tilted 45 degrees. Snap the pictures and get out. I don’t want to file a second claim if you know what I mean. He didn’t specify which rooms he wanted investigated. He originally said I should take the pictures outside, but I pushed him. Can’t get an accurate assessment if you don’t go in. He didn’t fight. I needed to see the last place she slept, the last room she inhabited. It’s hard to accept when there’s no body, when the reports still don’t make sense. I’m sure the government will come clean in the future, another wave of extraterrestrial documents getting declassified like they do every year, another wave of information ignored because we all have so much other trash going on in our lives that an alien invasion is the last thing on our minds.

I balanced myself against the hallway wall, stepping on even-number doors. The area smelled of cleaning solution, of lemons and harsh chemicals, though I’d been assured no one had come aboard to disinfect. I was the first to walk these halls after the initial search and rescue team had dropped the latter part of their title. Above was room 331. I wrapped my hands around the knob and turned. I pushed up with all my strength, sending the door back on its hinges. I grabbed onto the interior and hoisted myself up. My arms shook.

I saw Linda’s suitcase. The collection of smiling and slightly deranged raccoon stickers coating the luggage was unmistakable. Her toiletries filled the bowl of the sink, lying flat against the shower glass, toothbrush and vanilla face cream and birth control. I scaled the space as if it were a rock wall. The bed was wedged against a dresser. I pictured Linda walking through the room, tilting her face towards the sun on the balcony, texting me late at night from beneath the sheets, saying how much she missed me, how much the vast blackness of the ocean unnerved her. You can’t just walk home if your ship goes down. It’s not like a fender bender, I remembered her saying. You can only swim so long. I hoped she hadn’t had to swim, that it was some tractor beam snatching the ship from the ocean’s surface, that all the passengers now resided on some utopian planet, making friends with the locals who’d been skilled with translation technologies and dietary needs.

I don’t know what I hoped to find in Linda’s room. Her ghost waving at me from her bed, spirit cellphone in hand trying to send one last message? A note tucked into a nightstand drawer, a quickly sketched caricature of what had come for her, a ransom note in another’s unearthly scrawl? There was nothing. I checked each drawer. Just socks and bathing suits and complimentary robes. I snapped pictures of each. A job is a job, even if you sob as you do it. It’s unfair some people comprehend mysteries while others are left in the dark, when others have loved ones swallowed by those mysteries, every last molecule swept from Earth by things we aren’t allowed to understand.

Nothing inside was waterlogged. The carpet and comforters didn’t squelch with sea water. The boat hadn’t capsized. No tentacled monstrosity had pulled it beneath the waves.

I took a final photograph of the room and told myself I’d photoshop Linda in there as if it were that postcard. I’d mail it to myself so that when I received it, I could pretend there was still a chance she’d be coming back. Even if it was only for a second, just a single glimpse of our worlds aligning once again.