Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
Water, water, everywhere,
But not a drop to drink!
But not a drop to drink!
Mister postman, do you have a letter for me
from my own true love
lost at sea?
from my own true love
lost at sea?
— The Decemberists, "Lost at Sea"
Certainly most people in Morris’ place would have had certain misgivings about being stranded aboard a life raft, facing the unrelenting hunger and the possibility of having to eat the weaker members of the crew just to eke out the chance of survival for a few more days, but as Morris was an Asiatic black bear he had absolutely no qualms about it whatsoever.
— Charlie Hill, Auckland, New Zealand, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2015
You're asking me what it's like? To be lost at sea?
Well, you know... It's a... after a while, it starts to become... peaceful, I guess. Course, that's after you've cried and prayed, and panicked... Then yeah... you just drift. Hardly alive. Numb to hunger pains, skin cooked, no more water left to squeeze out any tears, having constant hallucinations. There's this kinda strange peace in it.
And you wait to die. But you don't die. You just keep on living.
Once the rationed water's gone, you spend the hours before the sun comes up licking the dew out of the inside of the raft. Unless it rains, that's all the water you'll get for the day. Then you haul in the algae catcher you're dragging behind the boat, the one you made from your shirt. And you eat what little has gathered in it. You don't know what most of it is. Doesn't matter. You eat it. You try to fish with the raft's survival gear, but that's mostly crap. Still, occasionally you actually catch something. And when you do, it's the best thing in the world. You just eat it whole. Eyes and guts and scales. Every inch of it. You can feel it, feel the life coming out of the thing you're eating and going into you.
And that's about it. That's your world. The raft. Drifting and waiting. And like I said... It's peaceful in its way.
And when your fellow countrymen finally find you, somehow, floating in all of that endless sea... Then they pull you back into civilization... And they start to heal you. Hydrate you. Feed you six times a day... They save your life. They really do. But still, you realize that no matter what happens now, no matter what they do to get you back to being healthy... You'll never, ever again feel as strong as you did before you got stranded out on that ocean.
Well, you know... It's a... after a while, it starts to become... peaceful, I guess. Course, that's after you've cried and prayed, and panicked... Then yeah... you just drift. Hardly alive. Numb to hunger pains, skin cooked, no more water left to squeeze out any tears, having constant hallucinations. There's this kinda strange peace in it.
And you wait to die. But you don't die. You just keep on living.
Once the rationed water's gone, you spend the hours before the sun comes up licking the dew out of the inside of the raft. Unless it rains, that's all the water you'll get for the day. Then you haul in the algae catcher you're dragging behind the boat, the one you made from your shirt. And you eat what little has gathered in it. You don't know what most of it is. Doesn't matter. You eat it. You try to fish with the raft's survival gear, but that's mostly crap. Still, occasionally you actually catch something. And when you do, it's the best thing in the world. You just eat it whole. Eyes and guts and scales. Every inch of it. You can feel it, feel the life coming out of the thing you're eating and going into you.
And that's about it. That's your world. The raft. Drifting and waiting. And like I said... It's peaceful in its way.
And when your fellow countrymen finally find you, somehow, floating in all of that endless sea... Then they pull you back into civilization... And they start to heal you. Hydrate you. Feed you six times a day... They save your life. They really do. But still, you realize that no matter what happens now, no matter what they do to get you back to being healthy... You'll never, ever again feel as strong as you did before you got stranded out on that ocean.
—Simon Anders, B.P.R.D.: 1947
