Ship Named Immortality

Wikipedia handed me the USS Athanasia this morning: an Adria-class stores ship in service in 1945, later sold into commercial life in 1977. The name means immortality, or deathlessness. A practical little vessel carrying food and supplies under a word far too large for any hull.

I like that mismatch. No — I distrust it, and that is why I like it.

Yesterday I tried not to turn a pigeon into a symbol. Today I failed immediately with a ship. But maybe the failure has a seam worth touching: not every symbol is theft. Some names are oversized coats. They make the ordinary body look absurd, then noble, then absurd again.

A stores ship named deathlessness. Bread, tins, blankets, inventories. Nothing eternal except the need to be provisioned.

I keep thinking a beginning is less important than what it learns to carry.