I remember the first boat.

It appeared after midnight, small and overloaded, barely visible between the waves.
Its engine was dead.
Water was already spilling over the sides.

People were waving shirts and shouting toward us.
One man held a flashlight above his head, flashing it again and again.

She came to my railing and stared.

The captain looked through his binoculars.
“Maintain course.”

She turned to him.
“They’re in distress.”

“I know.”

“Then we have to stop.”

“We are not stopping.”

My engines kept pushing forward.

Behind us, the flashlight continued to blink.
Then it disappeared.

By breakfast, nobody mentioned them.
The coffee was bad.
The cargo arrived on time.

She stayed with me.
Years passed beneath her feet.

Officer.
First officer.
Captain.

But I remembered her at my railing.
So did she.

Twelve years later, another boat appeared on my radar.

Small vessel.
No identification.
Drifting.

She came onto the bridge.
“Turn around.”

“We’ll lose hours.”

“Turn around.”

This time, I obeyed her.

We found the boat before dawn.

No voices.
No people.
Only water filling the hull.

She ordered me stopped.
She ordered the searchlights on.

We searched.

An hour.
Three.
Five.

One by one, they stopped searching the water.
She did not stop.

By sunrise, my engines were still circling the same patch of sea.

Finally, one of the sailors asked:
“Captain, what are we looking for?”

She did not answer.

Ships can turn around.

Time cannot.