It has been three weeks since the ship sank. Three weeks. Twenty one days of putting up with the searing sun baking the skin off our backs and rasping our eyeballs to shreds, whilst we aimlessly drift this way and that in this little boat, hoping that someone somewhere will pick us up and take us back home.
The woman (the only other passenger I could save) and I are parched for water. We are slowly being basted alive. On this, the twenty first day, I realise that we are actually dead. We are too weak to talk and far too weak to fuck. So we will die. I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable to happen.
But I open them again, as I am bound to. I realise that I am making love after all. I am in bed with my girlfriend. We make love gently and carefully, smoothly trying to perfect the art. With our every motion I can feel the bed moving gently on the water on which it idly floats. With every movement I can feel the shriveling sun drying out the juices from my husk.
Then I realise that I am not in the sea or in a bed at all. I am really sitting in a waiting room at my dentist's, waiting for my turn. In my hands I have a copy of the New Yorker, reading an article on the life of Poe, Henry Miller or Kipling or someone. Despite the fact that my eyes have been only skimming the words, I find that I can recall much of the article when I attempt to re-read it. How annoying.
The receptionist comes into the room and reads my name from a book. It is the woman from the boat. I greet the dentist politely, take off my hat and scarf and recline on the chair.