It isn't the truth at all. You just don't know the story at all. It didn't go down. Some people get no closer to the truth than this unfathomable strangeness.
I am walking along the first class promenade of the SS Titanic. It is a fine Tuesday morning some time in July 1953. Nothing has changed. We cruise eighty miles from the coast of New York. It is slightly misty, the air charged with the special electricity that comes with anticipation of event, a dynamic spark of promise. Beyond the mist lies the New World, before which will be a green French Colossus erected as a beckoning welcome to the new life before us.
There can't be anyone else on board. I haven't seen another soul for the last eight days. The ship just silently floats over the water, magically guided by the unseen crew towards the new freedom we all expect.
I lean over the railing and exhale cigar smoke, allowing the plume to mix with the steam from my breath and drift down over the balustrade, downwards into the choppy waves seventy feet below me.
Somewhere near the stern, the band I can never find are playing 'Nearer My God To Thee'. No smoke ever billows from the four huge funnels.
I lean over the railing and feel rather glad to be alive; glad to experience the great hopeful journey that will take me to the new land in a new time. Awakening from my idle dream I sniff the air from April 1912, and from that fateful day when they all thought they knew we were all killed. I hardly understand the fuss about all of this. I haven't met anyone here yet. Then again, I can only ever remember the last eight days at any one time.
The sky is marvelous. I stroll along the promenade and down the iron stair to the main deck. There are hundreds of deck chairs strewn across that area. There are some towels and some clothes. The band still plays.
I walk to the upper bridge and into the control cabin and enter the wheel house. A glass door bangs open and shut, creaking in the silent winds. The wheel sits motionless and untouched. The course is set dead ahead. I am relieved to know that at least the ship is well guided, heading directly for the untainted continent before us.
Before I have time to take it all in, the iron fabric of the ship starts to rust, the wood starts to rot, the glass starts to crack. There is a searing, groaning, tearing noise from somewhere below. It is very cold. The continent ahead of us vanishes. There is ice everywhere. The smell in the air is appalling.
As the air fills with a myriad silent screams my skin bristles, my legs tense and my heart races as I succumb to irresistible, numbing terror.
Something is standing behind me.