TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

I was a child in the ‘80s. It was a lot like the show “Stranger Things,” minus the monsters and wormholes, of course: kids riding their bikes in suburban neighborhoods, listening to music on cassette, playing board games with their friends. One thing I remember fearing as a kid, based on my reading and on television shows at the time, was the Bermuda Triangle. (I definitely watched too many episodes of “Unsolved Mysteries” as a kid, and read lots of Choose Your Own Adventure books.)

The Bermuda Triangle is a section of the North Atlantic Ocean off North America. It’s shaped, well, like a triangle, stretching from the Atlantic coast of Florida to Bermuda to the islands known as the Greater Antilles. More than 50 ships and 20 planes are said to have mysteriously disappeared in the area, and although theories of supernatural causes have become lore, geophysical and environmental factors are most likely responsible.

Okay then, so we can consider that debunked. The Bermuda Triangle isn’t what I’d thought it was as a child. A big part of growing up is reevaluating what we once believed, fact-checking our news sources, and becoming more discerning in general. And not just about stories we read, but about our own lives, too.

Today’s piece is collaborative, written by Sophie Klahr and Cory Zeller. I love the way it begins with the legend of the Bermuda Triangle but then turns toward the incredibly personal, though there isn’t a single person’s perspective or experience behind it.

an excerpt from THERE IS ONLY ONE GHOST IN THE WORLD
by Sophie Klahr and Cory Zeller

Despite  legend,   the  Bermuda  Triangle   does  not  have a  higher   rate of 
disappearances  than  other  geographical  sites.  It does not  appear  on  a 
single    world    map.     At    present,   Alaska    ranks    as    having    the   most 
disappearances per capita.   Though California ranks as the state with the 
most     disappearances:      2,133    people.      Sri     Lanka      has      the     most
disappearances  in the world:  60,000 to somewhere near 100,000 missing 
people since 1980.   If you look at  Sri Lanka  on a map  you’ll see it looks like 
a human nail.   And oddly,  yes,  like a triangle.   Laid out in one  long line, the 
average child’s blood vessels would stretch over 60,000 miles. The woman 
who  will  become your next  lover is describing  her  divorce while she gives 
you  a  lift  to  the   airport.   When  she   begins  to  talk  about  taking  off  the 
wedding  ring,  her  hand  cramps,  and she opens  the  window to  press her
left  hand  into  the wind.  You were  engaged once.  It was months  after the 
proposal  that   your  fiancé   actually gave  you a  ring.  Christmas in Virginia, 
your  first time  at his  family’s  home,  and  he  presented  the  ring to you in 
front  of  everyone.  It  was a  family  ring,  an  opal.  When  you  put it  on you
thought, My god, he doesn’t know me at all. 

“Untitled (Despite legend, the Bermuda Triangle...)” by Sophie Klahr and Corey Zeller from THERE IS ONLY ONE GHOST IN THE WORLD © 2023 Sophie Klahr and Corey Zeller. Published by FC2, an imprint of The University of Alabama Press. Used by permission of The University of Alabama Press.