You make your way along in the dim light. Ahead of you is a ladder. You take hold of it and begin to climb. Suddenly you hear a terrible grinding, crunching noise. The ladder shudders. You hold on tight for a few minutes after the noise subsides. Then you continue up the ladder and a moment later pull yourself out into the crisp, cold night air. Lights are glowing all around you. In front of you is a large slab of ice. You feel a strange motion as if the ground is moving. When you touch the ground with your hand, you feel wood. Not far from you is a railing. Beyond it-the sea! Above you are stars more numerous and brilliant than you have seen before. You realize you are on the deck of a very large ship.

Not far from you, hanging on a hook, is an enormous life preserver. Stenciled on it in black letters is the word TITANIC. You know there was only one ship that ever bore that name, that it made only one voyage, that it struck a huge iceberg, and that three hours later it was resting on the bottom of the Atlantic.

As you walk along the deck of the Titanic, you realize that below the water line thousands of gallons of water per minute are pouring into the forward compartments. The people don’t seem to realize what’s happening. The sea is as calm as glass. The band on the deck below you is playing a waltz. Several men in long black coats and women in fur jackets are walking close by.

“Goodness,” one woman says, “I can’t understand why the captain has stopped the ship. If we are late docking in New York, I’m going to lodge a complaint with the owners.”