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May 16, 2006
Words
I was listening to the radio the other day and they talking about a World War Two submarine that was discovered on the ocean floor below a busy shipping lane.
The submarine sank near Bermuda and apparently one of the torpedoes was still armed after all these years.
I didn't catch the whole story, but the remnants of the broadcast floated around my head all day.
Later, I was talking on the phone and doodling. Instead of drawing little pictures that I often subconsciously do, I found that I'd jotted down words. The words were related to the radio broadcast I heard earlier about the submarine.
We all have a bunch of words at our disposal. It’s incredible how our imaginations can take these words, put them in order, fill in the missing phrases and make a story.
If all the words of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel slipped out of the book and tumbled into a bucket, you’d have a bunch of great words, but no story.
It’s really a miracle if you think about it. Words without connection are just words. But, as soon as you take those words and wrap them around the soul of a tale, something starts to happen. The words form sentences. Sentences connect and become conduits that move the story from the soul of the teller to the heart of the recipient.
It’s amazing how different people using the very same words, will create a completely different story.
Submarine. Torpodeo. Implosion. Shipping lane.
As an exercise, I took the words I had jotted down and dropped them into the "internal story-generator' housed toward the back left-hand corner of my imagination. This is what came out:
The German submarine was positioned between Florida and Bermuda waiting for an Allied convoy.
“We will teach the Americans a lesson,” said the second in charge of the submarine. “We will show them that their decision to enter the war was a grave mistake.”
The Commander in charge said nothing. Deep within his being he knew that the crew of the submarine were all going to die that morning.
His thoughts were interrupted by an urgent shout from the sonar operator. “Herr Captain,” he yelled. “Something is wrong. The equipment is malfunctioning.”
“What do you mean malfunctioning?” said the Commander.
“The compass is swinging around like it's possessed.”
The submarine suddenly lurched to one side then eased back to its original position.
“They must be dropping depth charges from the convoy,” said the Commander.
“But the convoy is nowhere near,” said the sonar operator, perplexed.
“It must be,” yelled the Commander. “They must have snuck up on us.”
“There is no convoy, I hear nothing” said one of the radio operators removing his earphones. “I think it’s a storm.”
“What?”
“I think there’s a storm on the surface. Maybe a hurricane.”
“But nothing was indicated…”
“I have heard strange things happen here in the Bermuda triangle when it comes to the weather.” Said the sonar operator. “Something magnetic.”
The submarine suddenly lurched violently to the other side throwing all the men to the floor.
“We’re loosing air pressure,” cried a voice from a loud- speaker. “Two of my men have burst ear drums. There is blood coming from their ears…”
“Surface, surface!” yelled the Commander.
“But the convoy…”
“Forget the convoy,” said the commander. “If we don’t surface now, this boat will implode.
The Commander grabbed the communication microphone and screamed at the top of his voice, “Battle stations, battle stations, prepare to surface.”
The engines began to whirr and the craft jerked forward. A loud explosion suddenly grabbed one of the engines and tore it apart like a vulture ripping at the belly of an injured animal.
The remaining engine screamed in pain as it tried to lift the wounded submarine.
The stress on the engine was too much for it to bear and it tore itself to shreds from the inside out.
“Release all torpedoes,” screamed the Commander.
The torpedo hatches slid open and the powerful self-propelled explosives edged themselves into the launch position.
Before the torpedoes could be released, the hull of the submarine ruptured, sucking millions of gallons of water into the vessel.
“Oh my God,” said the Commander. His last words hung in the air for a moment but were quickly drowned along with the entire crew of the submarine.
The exact location of the U-boat was top secret and the boat was never found. Except by a school of fish that fed on the crew and by a vast number of deep-sea creatures that made the vessel their home.
Over the years the submarine became a veritable corral reef, festooned with beautiful deep-sea fauna and an array of constantly swaying anemones.
Only one torpedo was launched from the fated submarine, some twenty years after the war, when an octopus tripped the release mechanism during a mating ritual, and the device drifted to the surface.
The torpedo was found six years later on the beach of an unpopulated small island where it was successfully detonated.
The other three torpedoes, armed and ready, waited patiently for orders, as they rested comfortably in their beautiful bed of coral.
They had been waiting for more than sixty years, but they didn’t have to wait much longer.
A massive storm in the area began to churn the sea like an exotic drink in a barman’s blender.
Swirls of frothing water spiraled in a dizzy downward vortex, sending fish scurrying in every direction.
The hammering of the massive swells on the surface sent pounding shockwaves to the bottom of the ocean.
Like looters in a riot, whirling jets of water rushed along the ocean floor overturning and flipping everything in sight.
The rusted U-boat groaned and writhed under the constant buffeting from the storm above.
Crazy eddies of roiling water carelessly ripped away the beautiful multicolored coral which covered the submarine like a patchwork quilt.
A section of the reef suddenly broke lose and tore away from the submarine. As it fell, it ripped off the rusted cover of the upper torpedo bay.
As the U-boat rocked back and forth beneath the swells, the torpedo slowly began to work its way out of the tube.
Meanwhile on the surface, an unsuspecting cruise ship sailed toward Bermuda with its passengers completely oblivious to what was happening deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean one hundred nautical miles away.
Posted by trevor at May 16, 2006 10:19 AM