Redemption

Forewarning

For all the years that I've existed and through all of the things that I've seen, there has always been that one thing, that one rule that has remained constant through it all.

It's that everything has a beginning and everything has an end.

It is the price for having lived and it comes... eventually, to everybody, even those that may be undeserving of it. This I know all too well.

My own beginning started in the Bethlehem – Fairfield Shipyards on March 15, 1944, where I carried only a number for a name and my form soley existed on paper, having already gone through all the changes and improvements my designers thought necessary before passing the final blueprints to the work crew to follow as instructions

It was soon after the first plate sections had been placed and the first seams had been welded, I think that I came to being.

Much like the newborn babies framed in those pictures my crew would keep clutched next to their hearts, my eyes too were shut to the world at first. I lived alone in an infinite black void without consciousness, I had no idea as to who I was or even why I was, I existed without thought and my mind was silent.

Silent, that is until the visions began.

I reason it was sometime in April when the first one came into view, I remember simply existing in that empty void without any method or really, a need to bring together thoughts or conclusions of my own when suddenly, something appeared within my sight. A small grey vision gradually shone through the blackness presenting to me a large open space in which monotone blurs could be seen shifting around, this sight couldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds before fading back into the dark grey fog that made up my reality but it was more than enough to jumpstart what was to come.

That first vision brought with it not only my first view of the world outside my being but it also sparked the first sparks of thought I would ever have not that I knew what to make of it. I still lacked the words to form anything coherent and so for a small time, they remained murmurs and scribbles without connection or reason but not for long.

From that moment on, these visions of the world would come to me in random increments with no telling of just how much time had passed between them but as the days passed outside of my empty realm and the construction of my form pressed on, I found that the time spent in between intervals gradually grew shorter and shorter.

Another thing that I found from them as time progressed was that they gradually became clearer as well, small hints of color replacing the dark and light greys, details appearing in the figures I came to recognize as people and faint muffles changing to represent dulled sounds of machinery and passing conversation.

 It was from these sounds and shapes that eventually, I was able to figure out the meanings behind certain words by basing it off how words were used in the context of the scenario. Concluding that "Soda Pop" was used for referring to a type of bottle in someone's hand, "Babe" was used in reference to a person's child or someone they fancy, "Cigarettes" were the small sticks that they would light and emit smoke from and so on.

From learning these words and meanings not to mention through some struggling, I was able to use what I had learned to draw together sentences and finally form thoughts and conclusions of my own for once and make sense of my being and the world I inhabited.

Finally, I was able to think for myself.

As the weeks passed by, I would learn just a little bit more from the people surrounding me, hearing about the events that occurred in places I both would and would never get to see or figuring out a new pairing to the words I was hearing. The visions changing and evolving at the same time I was, showing different sights and different people, shifting to wide open views of the sea and the tall walkways that stood to either side of the slipway I was stationed in.