Abbie Day

“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

“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’. Blind spectators and a spectacle for the blind. They watch, they see nothing; in fact they can’t see anything. The stage is blacked out, and at this distance, from their sofas or in front of their TVs, they can’t make anything out. They see nothing, but are still present at the drama.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“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

“But since lack of empathy was an expression that the investigator had also used a few minutes earlier in connection with my way of recounting the facts, I reminded her of what I had said initially, namely that empathy is expressly discouraged and it isn’t hard to understand why. Either you save, or you sympathise.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat