Warm Waters, Chapter 1

WARM WATERS, A STORY

He felt the cold, black, lifeless eyes of the man on board over him.

‘No more begging?’ he gloated.

‘What would be the point’, spat the man in the water.

It had taken him hours to realise the man on board was serious. At first he just couldn’t believe this was happening to him. The absurdity of it all exasperated him and enraged him until all he could see was red. The situation was dead simple: he had rented a weekend fishing trip to the island. Halfway there he had had the whim of swimming right where there was no land to be seen. He had put on his scuba diving suit and diver’s knife out of snobbery, because the waters were at a stupidly warm temperature and he couldn’t think of one single reason he might need the knife; he had put on his flippers in case currents were stronger than they appeared, and his mask and snorkel out of habit. And after he had done his splashes, and dived, and laid on his back under the sun, and felt connected to the secret soul of the planet and all that, he had tried to swim back to the boat. At that point the man on board steered the trawler away from him. And when he tried to approach it again, he steered away again. Just a few braces each time, keeping always within a tantalisingly close distance. Not close enough for him to reach, but not so far that it seemed completely pointless trying. He had exhausted himself falling into that again and again, and getting furious, shouting, cursing and begging, not necessarily in that order, and getting no results, not even a word. Now he was determined not to be fooled again, to keep calm and resolve this problem. He started reviewing in his head the dangers and the opportunities. He had been scanning the sea around without realising.

‘You’re thinking, “somebody will turn up soon”, aren’t you’, said the man on board. ‘You’re thinking, “This is a route towards an island. People need supplies in an island. A cargo boat or the frigging milk sailor man will go by at some point and see me, and then I’ll be saved.” Isn’t that what you’re thinking?’

He felt like an insect studied through a lens, the glare of the man on board a bright laboratory light peering through his transparent body. Yes, that thought had put his mind at ease for an instant. Why was the man on board so untroubled by this possibility? Did ships really take that route? Was there anything he didn’t know? He couldn’t stand that glare.

‘I’m thinking whether I should cut your throat with the knife, or is it better if I strangle you? Or should I push you overboard and watch you drown?’ He tried to sound every bit as threatening as the man on board. He realised he was overdoing it.

The man on board coughed a void, cruel chuckle.

‘That’s not what you’re thinking.’ he said, and he lay back again, disappearing behind the gunwale line. The man in the water knew he was reclining on the cushioned bench in the cockpit where he himself had been sitting a couple of hours ago, taking the sights in, the salty breeze in his face, feeling alive.

What are my most pushing problems?, pondered the man in the water. About four hours away north, four hours by boat of course, stood the island were he had been headed. Right now its waters must be swarming with happy, fat tourists, diving to look at the fish, and taking pictures of themselves next to giant bivalves; they would be shipped off on shark spotting safaris. They would take pictures with their disposable, 24-snapshots, waterproof Kodaks. He could have been one of them, but he would have looked down on them. After all, he was an experienced diver; he had been to the Great Coral Reef and to the Maldives. Why in the world had he wanted to go to that blooming island in the first place? Why had he wanted to swim in the middle of the fucking sea? He was seeing red again. He took a deep breath.

Four hours southwards was the continent. How much could it take to get there by swimming? It seemed like a lot. I have to save my strength, paddle slowly, he told himself. He put on his diving mask and snorkel and floated belly down. There was nothing to be seen, no sandy shallows, no rocky reefs, just the deep blue abyss. He felt his breathing pace rushing as his eyes followed the white, straight stripes of light that pierced the waters ever downwards, deeper and deeper, in an angle that converged hundreds and hundreds of braces between his body and the earth, pointing at a cold, dark place where nightmarish creatures fed on the dead things that fell from the world of light in the surface, like himself. Vertigo overtook him. He took his head out of the water, realising his heart was in his throat, and that he could easily have panicked, swallowed water and gotten into trouble. When he looked to the boat, the man on board was staring. His eyes lifeless and black, a doll’s eyes. He thought he saw hatred or disdain in the wrinkle that twisted ever so slightly his upper lip, but he could be wrong. He felt again studied like a lab rat.

‘What are you staring at, you sick fuck?’ he groaned.

The man on board didn’t change his hieratic expression one bit.

‘You know you could freeze to death in this water?’ he said. ‘25 degrees Celsius, reaching perhaps 27 at high noon; like a bathtub, you said it yourself, and still you could die of cold out there, if you stay in long enough. That is, if you don’t get a cramp and drown. As you get colder, your heart will beat faster. The trembling will start. Moderate at first, then more and more violent, until your hands are all but useless. When your internal temperature drops under 35, you’ll start to die. Heartbeat will start to slow down, so will your breathing. The trembling burns oxygen and puts stress on your heart. You’ll feel confused. At that point, if nothing is done to warm you up, death could occur in less than two hours. Some sort of process involving lactic acid. At 33 degrees, your conscience will be completely clouded. Under 32, the trembling will stop, you’ll piss yourself, you’ll go into a state of stupor and then coma. At 27 you’ll appear dead. You’ll lose even your reflexes. Under 25 your body functions will collapse. People have been revived from a starting temperature as low as 15 degrees Celsius. But these were people who were immerged in water near to freezing point. That is not you.’

The man in the water had listened to all that in a state of increasing horror and disbelief.

‘Are you trying to kill me?’ he said, a burning knot in his stomach.

‘I am already succeeding’ said the man on board.

‘But... what is your fucking problem?’ whispered the man in the water, terror choking his voice.

A small, horrible smile curved the left end of the mouth of the man on board.

‘I believe the problem is all yours.’ he said.