I think I'm dead. I don't feel anything anymore. Around me there's no water, no wind.
I don't have a body anymore. I don't. And if I can't feel my body anymore, the conclusion is clear: I'm dead.
I probably melted into the ocean.
If that's true, then the salt water is my body, and the sharks in the water are my body too, so they won't attack me. It'd be like attacking themselves. It'd be stupid.
Everything under me is a blue illusion. That huge sheet of water that keeps rising and falling, then rising again... it's all a shit illusion. A lie.
It's dark around me. Up and down. Total blackness. You can't see the moon, you can't even see a single star. Is that what Hell looks like? A darkness thicker than tar--and nothing else? Yeah... I've got a bad feeling this is death.
"Wasser!"
If I can hear the girl, that means my ears aren't dead. They're all I've got left: two ears poking out of the water.
The girl's voice and the constant sloshing of the water are part of my personal hell.
I can hear thunder in the distance.
"Wasser."
I think the girl's dying. She's delirious. Her words, broken up by groans, are in German. Then it's cries and sobs and more words in German. Always German.
I hate the German language. I'm glad I never learned it. If I could understand every word the girl is saying, I probably would've gone insane a long time ago.
I want to tell her to stop, but that'd be a pointless waste of energy. A waste...
Every word gets stuck in my throat and rips it bloody. Only a groan makes it to my lips.
"Wasser."
Hmm... If she wants water, why doesn't she just drink salt water and be done with it? After that, she can shut up forever.
What irony! There's so much water everywhere, so much damn water around me, and I can't touch it. During the day, I tried a few times to drink this brine. I spit it right out. It's the saltiest water I've ever tasted. How the hell can fish live in this stuff?
Maybe she already drank salt water. Maybe it's better for her that she lost her mind. If salt water makes you lose your mind, then I'm going to drink as much as I can.
"Wasser."
"F... f-fuckin' hell..."
I can't take her crying and that pointless babbling anymore. I have to untie myself from her, no matter what. Yeah, yeah! Let's go our separate ways.
I try, but my arms are paralyzed. They won't obey anymore. If I could break the ties between us, it'd be a blessing. I shouldn't have saved her. I was an idiot! It was a mistake.
You're my bad luck! You, black-eyed witch! You and only you!
If it wasn't for you, none of this shit would've happened. From the moment you threw that look at me, everything started going wrong and people around me started dying. Because you're a cursed witch, a creature sent from Hell.
Something touches my leg again, and I scream at the top of my lungs. Something... what? Is it Death? Is Death lurking under the water?
God, I was kidding when I said I wanted you to kill me! How can you believe the stupid shit I say? Please, stop listening to me!
My head hurts, and that means I'm not dead. I've got a head, and it hurts.
I know the sharks got scared by my screaming and took off. I know I've got a head on my shoulders. I know I'm alive.
I open my eyes a sliver and stare at the sky. Somewhere up there, very far away, a little white light blinks, then disappears. Blinks again, disappears again. I'd swear that up there--ten thousand meters or so--there has to be a plane.
Those people on that plane have no idea how happy they are. What a beautiful thing! To have your ass planted on a solid seat and your feet planted firmly on the floor. That's happiness in its purest form!
I close my eyes and picture myself sitting among the passengers too. I'm really there. I hear the chatter.
I'm with them and I'm happy. I recline my seat and order every kind of soft drink, because I'm alive and I have money. I'm rich!
"What would you like, sir?"
I look at the flight attendant and grin, happy as hell. She's so cute! That uniform looks fantastic on her.
"Sir wants a lot," I say, and then I wink at her. "First off, sir wants an iced tea with two ice cubes. And I want a mint leaf frozen inside each ice cube."
"Very well. Anything else?"
"Then go get me some sparkling water from the fridge. And I also want--listen up--I want a big glass of apple juice. Also with ice cubes, but no mint."
"Is that all?"
"No. Bring me a big glass of plain water too--no bubbles--with a little slice of lemon."
"Is that all?" she smiles.
"No. Wait! I want one more thing. At the end, when I give you the nod, you'll bring me a tray with a hundred ice cubes so I can hold them in my mouth and suck them one by one till I've had my fill. And then we start over from the beginning!"
"That's what I'll do, sir," she says, writing it down carefully in her little notebook.
"Good! That's what you'll do!"
"Hilfe!"
Huh? What the hell is "hilfe"? Where's my iced tea?
Hilfe? What's "hilfe"?
Aha, that's one of those German words I know. It means "help."
"Hilfe!"
The plane is gone. The flight attendant is gone too, notebook and all. My order's gone to hell.
Now I know for sure that if I hate anyone in this world, it's Eva! What the hell possessed her to start yelling hilfe? It's not nice to bother people when they're ordering sparkling water with ice. I'm untying myself from you right now, you witch. I'm going to go left, toward the plane, and you're going to go right, toward the sharks.
You German sow! You stole my sparkling water! Why did you steal my sparkling waaaater? Why?
Ugh, I'm so damn thirsty! I dunk my head under and take a gulp of this stuff. It's salty and it burns my throat. Hell!
I'm not going to make it to tomorrow. I can feel death close by. If I concentrate, it'll show up.
Something suddenly explodes behind my eyes. I see all kinds of little colored lights.
Something smacks my heel and I scream like I'm getting stabbed:
"Shaaarks! Sh... shaaarks!"
The girl screams too. She's very close to me. Her screaming scares me worse than the sharks. I reach out and grab her. She's my life preserver.
"Help, Eva! Shaaarks! Help me!"
She tries to fight me off, but I hold on to her tight as hell. Like we're one body, one vest--one damn creature.
"Shaaarks!" I scream, crying, and my tears make the waves even saltier.
Eva screams bloody murder. I look her in the eyes and tell her, crying like a kid:
"We're going to die! I swear I felt a shark. I swear it smacked my leg with its tail!"
I'm so terrified, I let her go and start flailing my arms like crazy through the water.
"Don't leave me, God! Help, Eva!"
The girl screams and babbles something in her German:
"Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name..."
"Shut up, you idiot!" I scream, crying. "You brought them here. You and only you brought them here with your babbling!"
"Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute und vergib uns unsere Schuld," she sobs, crying.
"Oh, yeah? Yeah? Well, just you wait... I swear I'll snap you in half like a damn twig!"
She doesn't even look at me. She keeps rattling on in her bird gibberish.
"Und führe... uns nicht in Versuchung sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen! Amen!"
Right then, I feel something under my feet. It hits me right in the soles! That beast under the water has rough skin. I jump up out of the water, then splash back down, and the beast hits me again.
This time my soles stay stuck to its rough skin, scratching me up.
I kick back under the water. I stretch both legs at once and kick hard into the thing under me. I raise my hands. The water only reaches my chest now.
"It's not a shark!" I howl, crying. "It's a whale! We're standing on a whale, Eva! A wha..."
Suddenly, a thought shoots through me from head to toe. I snap out of it completely. What is this? You're standing on sand, you idiot, on sand! It's not a whale, you moron!
It's dark. The waves are heavy and keep shoving me around, but I manage to hold my position. I'm standing up.
"Eva, it's sand!" I yell. "God, we're saved! We're on a sandbar!"
I pull her against me. I hug her like a lunatic. Half a minute ago I was about to kill her, but who cares. Together we're heavier, and I'm not about to lose the sand under my feet.
"It's sand, dear girl--sand!"
The waves shove us back and forth. The rest of the night, I fight like hell to stay on the sandbar and keep our feet planted on it.
Toward dawn, with the first streak of light, I can finally make things out.
That's good. The first thing I notice is the trees.