Abbie Day

“I know people would have liked me to say: You’re not going to die, I’ll save you. And not because I would have actually saved them, done my job, done the necessary, sent rescue. Not because I’d done what you’re meant to do. They wanted me to have said it, at least to have said it, just to have said the words. That was what the investigator was waiting for anxiously, for everyone to hear, to hear their own voice in mine in these recordings. The voice of each of us saying I will save you. Each one in my place. The voice of the whole of humanity reassured to hear itself saying, uttering the words: I will save you; you will not die – not actually saving, no one cares about that, not acting, not even helping. But at least saying it, because to fail to say those words is to be less than human. In the end, whether they drowned or not didn’t matter; what mattered were my words. What mattered was not that they were saved; it was that I should be saved, and the whole world with me, through these words. Saved by my own words, not condemned by them.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“I’m simply asking you, can you actually not imagine what they went through in those three hours, what it feels like to spend three hours watching yourself die. And I’m not asking you for my sake, she felt obliged to add, but for yours, because if you can’t get your head around that, you need to be asking yourself some questions: it doesn’t take much imagination to be a moral person.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“There is no shipwreck without spectators. Even when there's no one, when it's far out at sea, at night, without witnesses, even when there's no living soul in sight for thousands of nautical miles, only waves and the viscous night, covering everything, swallowing everything; when there are no more eyes to see than there are arms to reach out, there are still spectators and the shore from which they are watching is never far away, even if, at the same time, it is infinitely distant. Even with their eyes shut, people are still watching, and I can't think of a single one who could say: I wasn't there. From inside their own homes, they are all watching the drama, and the drama is never ending; it plays out every day, every night, on high days and holidays, even when they're doing other things, they're still spectators of the 'drama at sea.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“There are only two possible explanations, as far as I can see, each as damning as the other. Either your attitude stems from a particularly stupid line of reasoning, by virtue of which, in an attempt to escape the obvious liabilities and avoid acknowledging anything whatsoever, you are getting yourself into a far more serious liability: or else you are quite consciously trying to sink yourself”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat