Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #66 – Floating, floating

…But we each knew that if we looked out onto the horizon we’d go crazy thinking how far away it was, about how slim our chances of survival were. …

We had survived a shipwreck, me and two other people. We were just floating in the middle of the ocean, all alone, with no wreckage or raft or anything to hold on to. We faced each other to keep from getting freaked out by the fact that we were in the middle of the ocean, miles from anything. But we each knew that if we looked out onto the horizon we’d go crazy thinking how far away it was, about how slim our chances of survival were. We suspected there were sharks underneath us but no one mentioned that possibility.

Our skin was very pale, nearly white, like a cave salamander or maybe like flight suits. It almost glowed under the water. And each of us held onto something that we had rescued from the ship before it went down. Like I had this small parcel that some how was supposed to be used for navigation but none of us knew how to use it. It also wouldn’t have been very much use to know WHERE we were if we didn’t have the ability to move anywhere else.

So there we were, treading water, all of us on the verge of insanity, waiting to drown. We knew how it would happen. One of us would not be able to take it any longer, either from exhaustion or from fear or craziness from the waves constantly hitting against our chests and heads. The one who goes crazy will start to freak out, and grab on to the others. We’ll struggle, wrestle in the waves, gulp water. It’ll be easy for us all to be pulled under, for us all to drown. We’re just waiting. Watching each other. Putting it off.