As tears go by

//4 Shygura

...She was sleeping in the berth. A freezing sensation awoke her. She startled, grunted and shouted as someone had thrown on her a bucket of frozen water. The water was all over: under her, around her, over her. It was a murky, dangerous, cold and treacherous proximity, filling her cabin pitilessly. The waters swirled and swelled around her. She straightened up, propped down her feet and stood up, but something pulled her down in half meter of iced water. She went under. She fumbled and got back on her feet and lost her balance again. She submerged again. She got back on her feet. The some thing happened again. She went down another time as in an insane game. She realized that someone had tied her up. She doubled over and tried to get free.

Impossible.

Someone had duly trussed her ankles to the berth. It was not possible to unfasten them. She looked at the mounting water flapping the walls, and stifled the scream of terror that was rising inside her throat. She had to stay calm, to keep her sangfroid or there will not be a positive end from that situation. Hysteria was not the solution. It was like that time the parachute suspension lines twisted. She had to find the solution in a few seconds. How they used to say among Russian airborne troops? If neither the main nor the reserve chute opens, you still have a whole twenty seconds to learn to fly. Now it was easier, she did not know how long she had to live, but she bet it was between five minutes, and a couple of hours. How long does it take a boat to sink? She realized she didn't want to know the answer. She looked under the pillow. It was not there. She glanced around striving herself to focus. Then it popped into her mind. She climbed up the berth and opened the porthole. She put her arm out. She hoped it was still there. She relieved. She yanked back the knife she had attached at the hull with the all-weather outdoor waterproof duct tape, that one which worked in warning panels, safety signs, and so on. She cut the line at her ankles and bolted for the exit. The door was shut. She threw herself against it. It didn't move an inch. It was as solid as a wall of bricks. She yelled and poked it hard with the knife. Jets of water shot in through the cracks. She forced herself to keep going what she was doing. Also, if one side of her mind was saying to the other:

"The boat is still afloat!"

"It is not under water yet!"

"I can make it out!"

The other side of her mind was shouting back:

"The boat's sinking!"

"We are hitting the sea bottom."

"That's it. This is your grave."

"You are fish food"

She chased away that thoughts able to destroy everybody's mind. She had to focus on what she was doing, nothing else. She poked the knife one last time. Finally, the door yielded under the pressure of the water as it was made of cardboard. A wall of raw, dirty, oily water thrust her in, and filled to the top the cabin in a second, gurgling and sloshing around her. She ground her teeth, took a deep breath, and lounged forwards. Toppled and found herself swimming underwater, oxygen in her lungs for a minute, tops. She exited the flooded cabin and swam blindly through a completely flooded corridor. Her lungs ached; her nails broke on the wood-panelled floor or was it the ceiling? She had lost her bearings in the pitch-dark corridor. She bumped against the wall. Dead end. Panic-stricken, she realized it was just the corner. She swam around it. Finally, she made out an jagged square of opaque light in the pitch dark corridor. She reached it. Her head broke the surface of that liquid nightmare. She sucked the air, inhaled deeply, screamed and relieved. She narrowed her eyes, blinded by the glow of the Sun. The golden light flooded that liquid, treacherous world. She looked around. The boat deck was submerged. The yacht was frozen in silence as a dying animal unable to move. Heavy grim waves swept over it. It was a surreal vision. There was no getaway. The boat deck bellowed like a mortally wounded whale. She sensed the hull whimper as a living being on his death bed. She stumbled. She felt groggy and could barely think straight: she did not know what happened, but she knew what she had to do. She dived into the open sea and started to swim fast and steadily. She had to keep her mind focused on her moves. She had to fight back the shock, the panic and break away. It was her only option. It was not an easy choice. She started to put an arm in front of the other and swam. Before long, her body wanted to rest, to turn back, to look at the yacht, the only solid piece of wood and metal around, not the liquid deceitful mass always moving she was in. she felt overwhelmed. What was happening was not real, it had to be a nightmare, nothing else. She couldn't rest or the boat backwash would have dragged her into its descent to the abyss. Her over-stressed mind recalled the sea ghost stories of shipwreck and ghost ships that the drunk sailor with a wooden leg told her in a watering hole of Kaliningrad; these stories all had one thing in common: never look back at a sinking ship or she will pull you down in her fall to the underworld, but she couldn't go on. She stopped and looked back. The yacht had foundered. Over the smooth surface of the sea some flotsam: a plastic belly-up table, a deflated life preserver, a suitcase. Out of the blue, something orange disrupted the exposure of human artefacts. It popped out of the water and opened with a whooshing deafening sound. She could not believe her eyes. It was a dinghy. She started to swim back, but she was at least at fifty meters away and the waves and the current were pushing her away. She yelled at the life boat. "Wait! Don't go away! Come back!" The unconcerned dinghy corkscrewed between the crests and troughs of the waves, like it was playing hide-and-seek, making her mad and desperate. She called it names. Being without a solid ground underneath was maddening her. It was not like jumping with the naval SpN in Baltic sea from 26000 feet. She had no aqualung gear, no parachute, no team, no mission. Just her strength, her will to survive. It was not a drill. She kept screaming of rage. Finally she reached the dinghy, her muscles afire in agony. She climbed inside and fell on the floor, heaving and shivering. She started to cry. She was dead tired, worn out, cold. She propped her cheek to the floor. She could not stop thinking that under that thin layer of gum there was an infinite liquid mass of water, treacherous, bottomless, cold as death and merciless. The slightest mistake and she would have drowned. She curled up and stood still, as dead. If I touch the ground again, I won't ever go near a lake, a river, a glass of water ever again, she swore to herself. Her heart was pounding through her chest. Sweat, seawater and tears dropped onto the floor of the dinghy. She hallucinated. She was still among the waves. There was no life raft floating for her. She jumped, shouted and bit the floor of the raft. It smelled of gum and marine glue. It was real. She sniffed it and shut her eyes.