On the right, the devil;
On the left, the deep blue-

A picture frame floated nearby. I closed my eyes against the sun and saw a trunk full of
picture frames, each one older than the last. It was my strongest link to the past; now my
only link. A fragment of memory in the middle of the sea.

Salt crusted in my hair. Water weighed every limb down. I clung to the wood - part of a door - not out of any sense of determination to survive but more out of habit. I've been floating for three days.

First day, D-Day, when a mountain of water rose from underneath the yacht and upended it and everything in it into the sea. I had been in the lavatory, washing my hair. I heard it first and wondered if some speedboat piloted by a daredevil was cruising dangerously close. It had happened more than once. I knew it would always happen. Such was life in a yacht. Or had been.

First night, the cold. The wood and fiberglass had shattered around me as though hit with a giant hammer or the fist of God. Earlier, I had fought to stay afloat. Hard to do, when "up" and "down" changed directions and "here" was a vortex. By nightfall, the sky was as dark as the sea. Far into the harbor, 400 miles away, the ubiquitous lights from civilization were not there. I was a strong swimmer - a necessity for a hobo living in the middle of the ocean - but sometime while I was being tossed and spun around like a piece of lint in a washing machine, I had hurt my leg. Or something, had hurt my leg.

Screw it. I was numb from the waist down.

Four hundred miles in two days would have been a piece of cake.

Four hundred miles in two days and no food and water would have been a push but I would have made it.

I was fish food.

I half-lay on a plank of wood. I recognized the doorknob that was still attached. It was the door to my bedroom. My bedroom where all the debris of my life had been stored, including my body. Had. Now all of it was scattered by currents in the Pacific.I almost giggled when I imagined my underwear washing up in Hawaii.

Second day, the heat. God, the heat! I could only splash water on my skin with one hand. The other held me fast on my precarious flotation device. It rocked and rolled over every small and big wave. At this point, hunger was turning my saliva to acid. I swallowed and grew more thirsty.

I briefly wondered why I hadn't been rescued yet. Why hadn't some great windy beast come to let down its ropey hair? It didn't occur to me that maybe the beasts were busy elsewhere.

Second night. The hope left, evaporated like each drop of moisture in my body. My eyeballs scraped their lids. My tongue was dried meat. My skin crinkled like paper. I was almost desperate enough to drink the salt water all around me. I didn't even want to think what was going on with the lower half of my body. As far as I cared, I was a mermaid now. The other half, lost to the sea.

Third day. Not one inch closer to shore. All around me, my life and escape in bits and pieces. I closed my eyes and prayed for rain.

*****

TBC