Cargo

My mind has a tendency to wander and make stories out of things, I guess its a way of processing information really - but doing it is often quite a positive thing for me these days - sometimes it allows me to look at things differently, rotate them - play with them  - project  them into  the future and see what might happen if...?
Sometimes I might replay an event from someone else's point of view -sometimes its illuminating - sometimes ...not so much.
Sometimes its my subconscious screaming at me, usually because haven't noticed something really obvious.

There are  a series of these stories. Each from a slightly different time in my estrangement.
It is striking from where I am now that they are the same story told different ways
but not at the time they occurred to me.




I found myself standing at the side of a dock - It was a grey and misty day and I couldn't see very far. But looming above me was the shape of a huge cargo vessel and all around where the sounds of clanking machinery and cries of people busy loading the ship.

Huge cranes would trundle into view, coming out of the fog with their vast swinging containers to load onto the distant deck, stacking it like a great game of tetris - the boat would heave and sway and I watched with quiet interest. Suddenly an uproar, something shifted out of place and a crowd of people surged around shouting frantic directions to the crane driver. It was easy to see where the pattern of containers wasn't balanced and although many people were shouting no one seemed to see - so I waved at the driver - pointing where the load needed putting to keep it balanced. I caught his eye and he gave me a brief thumbs up, someone slapped me on the back and the pattern resumed as people disappeared back into the mist. I stood a while longer and another crane driver paused before me shrugging and pointing at the vessel - I pointed to the next obvious place and loading continued - Over and over now the crane drivers paused for directions, faster and faster they came no one else came to tell them where to unload and I began to panic  - I had no idea what I was doing ! Yet there was no time to pause or think as the loads stacked higher and higher and the ship sank lower and lower under its increasing load.
On and on it went and no-one stepped out of the fog to take over this job - I became increasingly frantic -and wording started appearing on the side of the rusting containers as they sank into view..
Guilt - Shame -Inadequacy - Failure....I paused puzzled ....and then



out of the mist drifted a huge crane - bigger than any I had ever seen before - a vast crate swinging on the end of huge tense chains far too big to balance well on the surface of the others
and suddenly peace came to me.
I pushed my hands into my pockets and relishing the warmth I sauntered off along the dock, whistling. Behind me sirens began to sound with a frantic whooping drowning out the panicky shouts from the drivers...
I shrugged. How had I failed to notice it wasn't my boat.
These weren't my problems.
I didn't have to deal with them. All I had to do was walk away into the increasing sunshine.