Tales From the Multiverse: April 15, 1912

I step outside to get some air upon the ship’s fine teakwood deck, the North Atlantic air bites deep, I raise my collar ’round my neck. Remind myself that it’s April, and that it must be near midnight, the long bow seems a lovely place to stretch my legs and smoke my pipe. I’m not usually up this late, but no one sleeps upon this ship, spent hours in the first-class lounge, swapping tales with some rich Brits. It was a treat coming onboard, a maiden voyage is not cheap, but I landed deals in England, and so this luxury I reap. Though my success cannot compare to some of the men still inside, those Astors and those Guggenheims… can’t imagine such gilded lives. Not far away, up by the bow, two sweethearts forget the whole world, I remember my youthful days hen I could get lost in a girl. Heck, I’m not even forty yet, and were this fifteen years ago, maybe that would be me and Claire... so long as mother didn’t know. I smile and turn my gaze back upon the night so flat and dark, no moon to cast its silver glow, can see no light, nary a spark. But wait…I think I see a mass, it’s darker than the starry sky, alarm bells ring and shouts go up, the front of the the ship comes alive. Ship lights reflect, I see ice, a berg that’s right ahead of us! Cold panic races down through me, death comes quick, and I see the cause. Engines groan, the ship shudders, the water roiled and churned, iron creaks loud as the vessel desperately attempts to turn. I see the iceberg drawing near, a slick sheen of white and blue, my chest thumps like a triphammer at this cold, yet beautiful doom. But then the prow, it clears the berg! Shifts left twenty, then thirty feet, water opens wide between us, the ship and iceberg do not meet!! It takes my stunned mind a moment, then I release a long-held breath, never in all of my years have I come so very close to death. To think that so many people could’ve all frozen or drowned, just imagine the tragedy if this great ship had gone down…