He had this hackneyed phrase in his head –“adrift in a sea of confusion”– that he couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Was this really the best he could do in describing how he felt? Yes, at least for the time being, he was forced to admit that it was. He wouldn’t be able to do any better until he somehow managed to banish that phrase.
He’d spend hours trying to shove those words from his head and could succeed for brief stretches in thinking of other things, things that were not his present situation, but he would always sense the troublesome phrase still loitering in the shadows and waiting to pounce the instant he let down his guard.
This business went on for several months. He eventually lost track, actually. At night the words would scroll again and again across his skull, and he would start to feel as if he were literally adrift on a sea of confusion, his bed a flooded boat or rolling raft.
He started to have episodes of intense seasickness, during which he would often vomit into a plastic ice cream bucket he took to placing alongside his night stand. He became addicted to Dramamine, which, taken in immoderate quantities, would induce in him powerful hallucinations and nightmares.
The medication did, however, seem to succeed in quelling his seasickness, but replaced it with terrifying visions of violent storms and hurricanes and sea serpents. Almost always in the midst of these visions he would find himself tossed from his boat into the endless roiling darkness of the sea.
One night, alone in his bed, after thrashing around in the usual fashion for a time, he felt himself sinking into a darker and darker place.
In his final moments he felt surprisingly calm.
The coroner’s report listed the cause of death as drowning.
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