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Codes of Survival -Scripts - a series of short factionalized stories based
on historical events in the Subantarctic Islands written by Lloyd Godman
to accompany the exhibition and installation - 1993 - © Lloyd Godman
Codes of
Survival - Scripts
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1857 - DEATH OF AN IMMIGRANT
A speck alone in the vastness of the Southern Ocean ....... .
Wave tumbled and adrift at mercy and the
fate of the sea. Abandoned to the elements among the
incessant surging, pulse of the ocean that
explodes in a mass of spray, splintered
whiteness and blows off as effluvium.
Lashes of rain squalls dive from the south
west in heavy curtains across the surface
with a persistent voracity that causes the
large rain drops to ricochet upwards a
meter or more with the impact; like
bullets from ten thousand
automatic weapons.
Majestic sea birds wheel and dive in
ultimate roller caster rides from
crest to crest. Large is the Albatross and
petite is the prion, this sea is their home,
each a ruler in a vast expanse of ocean
kingdom. The cold breath of the southern convergence bites obliquely at the
sensitivity of the shimmering surface, causing a refraction of swells that roam the ocean undisturbed by any significant land mass,
building larger and larger with each circumnavigation. This tempest of swell,
that surges in infinite lines of
unabated power across the open
expanse, it is unique
to this place.
This surface; where the lifeless upturned
corpse dressed in fresh garments brought and packed so carefully for the excitement of an immigrants landing on the soil and promise
of a new land, now floats on the swollen undulations. This; no more than a broken
dream upon the shock of illness and the
tragedy of death. Upon embarking on the
voyage, this soul could have flown with the
sure wings of an eagle all the oceans length
so high was his spirits at the prospect of
a new beginning, a new life; but now it is
gone with his death, never to be.
Under strain of wind filled canvas, the
boat sails onward, intact the living dreams
of the others though clouded amid the
grimace of tears and memories of their
lost son still warm in their hearts. A fathers
tears, hidden from the others fall drop after
drop in private from the ship and melt into the wholeness of ocean, while by the minute
the physical distance grows between the
dry and living and the brine drenched dead
grows. The brotherless children weep in the warmth of a mothers arms, together.
But to what end is the body of an ocean
burial destined? Does flesh and bone float
or sink? Is it eaten by the ocean beasts?
Or does it rot on the sands of an ocean floor?
Can they tell?
In three months there is little more
than a torn, water worn coat, washed
high up a black stoned beach, the neat
folds and pressing forgotten it lies,
rejected in a tangle, sea tossed. The
woven fibres rotting into the fabric
of the earth, it rests at the high
water mark amid other remains, that
of bleached seal lion bones, shells
and dry seaweed  , Rata leaves twigs
and grass. Tangled in a new weave
of the fragments from other lives,
now dead together.
The human body;
no trace. But! flung far up the beach is a single
button now free from the stitch,
foreign in its new environment,
eternally forgotten by an
excited family settling
a new land. It lies in a sandy hollow with last
years discarded Rata leaves dried
to brown in the summer sun and
a large skuas spit ball
of feathers and
bird bones.
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