‘In retrospect I realise that it was something I shouldn’t have done. Powell had several years of training and even then he hadn’t planned for accidents or Acts of God or whatever. It’s insulting of me to sit here in the middle of the ocean and complain about things that didn’t go my way. I couldn’t have done it differently because then the outcome would have been different and this might never have happened.’
John Balance put down his pen, exhausted, and fell flat on his stomach, rocking the boat as he collapsed.
***
Hours later he awoke to find himself in the same vessel, his surroundings also unchanged. The same still blue expanse of ocean under a piercing sun.
It had been a week since his disappearance. For months he had been working secretly on a project that he hadn’t divulged to anybody. He had been so enthusiastic about it that he had quit his job. He left his home and rented a room at a lodge. When people came to visit him he would tell them to wait outside the door while he shuffled his work hurriedly away. The only thing in his room that might have furnished a clue to those in the know was the picture of Emeric Powell on the wall.
Powell had been a famous adventurer during an age when such an existence had spurred no doubt. He had climbed mountains, crossed deserts and lived among wild tribes in the tropics, all for a cause that he had never revealed to another soul. Of all his feats, the one that most impressed John was the story of how he had deliberately cast himself adrift in the ocean for a week, carrying no food and very little water. Some instinct in the young man was captured by this notion of subsisting deliberately on the barest essentials that life could offer. He had read that when Powell was finally rescued – he had been closely monitored during the time he was at sea – he had been near to death. Even after he had recovered physically it was said that he never was the same again. This most swashbuckling of characters discovered a reticence in his nature that he bore in almost hermit-like seclusion during his last years.
John was no adventurer and he had no desire for travel, but he believed that he had a book in him waiting to be written, and he convinced himself that the book should be about Powell. At first, he slipped into the mould of an amateur sleuth and researched Powell’s life, his background, and the many expeditions. He scoured the libraries for every scrap of detail about the man. It was a painstaking and at times numbing process – he was indiscriminate about his sources and fanatical about the range of Powell’s influence. Yet, despite his efforts, after several months of intense study he felt that he hadn’t penetrated his subject in any meaningful way.
All this time an idea had been hatching in his mind that perhaps the only way to progress would be if he were to repeat the man’s actions himself. The more that he thought about it the simpler the plan became, until finally he reasoned that in order to make a significant advance on his research he would only need to spend a week alone on a boat with enough drinking water, a pen, and some paper.
When he made his decision he acted on it quickly. He told nobody about his plans and hired a small dinghy, which he secured with rope to an abandoned jetty. The rope allowed him twenty metres’ distance from the shore. If the situation became too burdensome then he would simply reel himself back in.
The first couple of days went surprisingly quickly, although hunger arrived even quicker. He weathered the early anxieties by maintaining a steady flow of words to record his every thought and sensation. Even if this material yielded nothing productive toward the Powell biography, he thought, it would make a very readable journal.
It was as he awoke on the morning of the third day that he discovered that the boat had slipped its moorings and drifted out into the open sea. Peering in the direction of the shore he spotted a rigid figure slouching away from the jetty. It was a haggard old man in a suit. He could be an ageing writer or a criminal. What did it matter to him, he wondered.
He panicked at first, but eventually decided that he would try and wait out the remaining time. There was too much at stake. He hadn’t gone very far out and besides, people were sure to come looking for him once they had learned of his disappearance.
‘Balance, a name that deserved mockery at school but never received it. I wonder why. I was never the first or the last in class at anything, and I never showed the willingness to confront my weaknesses that even the most limited of my fellow students exhibited. In all I was a coward but I made a sacred virtue of it, never uttering the word for fear that I might hit upon some unforgiving truth.’
He pursed his lips in frustration. He had wanted to say something more urgent, less stunted. He wondered if this was perhaps all that he was capable of.
‘My name is Balance, for God’s sake! I should know what it is profitable for me to do given my situation.’
The supply of drinkable water had ended prematurely, and since then he had also struggled to keep account of the number of days that had elapsed. He guessed that this was his sixth day, which meant that he was near to Powell’s record. The thought made him anxious. He was reminded that all he could do was to wait.
‘My throat has been sore and aching for a long time. I tried the sea water but my body rejected it as soon as the first drop had entered. I can feel my insides bleeding; I can almost smell the blood: that smell wafting out of my mouth. I feel pungent and in need of a wash, ridiculous as it sounds. Hours of exposure have caused a rash on my back from the neck down. I try to soothe the pain with water from time to time but it doesn’t help. I’m aware that most of my actions are being accomplished purely to motivate me psychologically.’
He dozed off after writing these words.
* * *
When he awoke it was night. Something was circling him overhead but he couldn’t tell in the dark what kind of bird it was. On the deck of the boat he saw dark red drops of blood. Touching his lips he felt the warm liquid seeping out.
‘If I was to do it, I couldn’t possibly regret what had passed before. Powell had several years of training and even then he hadn’t planned for accidents. It’s insulting of me to sit here in the middle of the ocean and complain…’
Was he repeating himself? He flipped back a few pages to confirm the fact. Something he had read about Powell returned to him: how in his final years he had become almost mad with isolation. Feeling that he couldn’t share his experiences with any other person, he often resorted to writing down imaginary conversations with himself in order to effect some dialogue.
‘Perhaps this is what is happening to me now. I’ve isolated myself so thoroughly that I can’t remember what had happened only a short time before. Maybe Powell felt the same thing, this despondency that made him forget himself sometimes.’
He put down his pen, surprising himself by his steadiness, and leaned over the side of the boat to stare at his reflection. His head was numb with hunger, his mouth a bloody red, and his muscles ached with weariness. Outside there was water everywhere; inside he was in deep concentration.
He dipped his face toward the water and broke its glassy surface. It was crisp; it drenched his hair and quickly absorbed his head. Following through with the rest of his body, he sank in one motion, and was pulled soundlessly into the depths.
