Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea

by Steven Callahan

I’m beginning to panic. Got to stop it! I’ve got to get it sealed! Can’t. Arms too tired to move. Shut up! Got to. No choice. Move, arms, move! I try to order my beaten and bedraggled body back into action. I crawl forward, relash the patch. She blows. I lash it again. She blows! Time and again the sea throws the raft down. Water smashes against me, flinging me into the torrent that sloshes in and out. Stabbing spasms, twinging, throbbing, convulsive cramping, piercing pain. I cannot take it, I won’t make it. Stop it! Harder, got to pull the strings tighter. Got to try. World is reeling. Words echoing. Forgotten memories. Hands trembling, skin breaking. Pull harder, harder! Groaning, gasping. Pump. How many? Don’t know, can’t count. Three hundred maybe. Top tube, too, another ninety. My arms are being torn from their sockets, and I am being flayed alive. A wave crashes in. My world jumps and shakes. She blows. Tie her up again, harder. Get it to stick. The still hangs lifeless over the bow. Pump up the tube. So long, now, ever so long. Two hundred eighty. Rest. O.K., squeeze. Two eighty-one . . . She blows! Collapse, can’t move. My left arm is searing. With my right, I drag it up onto my chest. Night is here. So very cold, but I do not shiver. I’m lifeless, floating like a wet rag along the top of the sea. Can’t move any more. Numb. The end is come. Breathing hard. Gasping! Yes, I guess I am. Eight days I’ve been trying to patch the leak. No more, please, no more. The ocea...