Maybe I am an escapologist and this is a show? Seems unlikely.
All I can see above me is a blur that is all that’s left of someone’s holiday-blue sky. This should not be upsetting and it most definitely is, and the reason for this is that in between me and that sky are two fathoms of cold, salty water. Now three fathoms. Soon four.
You seem, I am sinking fast and there is no way I will ever be able to remove the chain from my legs. That chain is also connected to a pair of heavy truck wheel rims. I should be panicking more than I am.
The chain won’t come off because the person who put it there does not want it to come off and, to ensure it stays on, my hands have also been cuffed behind my back. I have no memory of how this all came about. In fact, the further I descend, the less breathable oxygen I have, the worse my memory gets. Right now, for example, the only thing I can remember with any clarity is my dog, Dapper Dale.
Dale would most certainly have come to my rescue by now but Dale has been dead since we were both 11. I wonder if I’ll see Dapper Dale again when this is all over?
Talking of animals, a shark just went past my nose, a patient shark. Just circling me. Hello shark. The shark wants no part in socialising. I wish I’d been like that. I wish I believed in Heaven. I wish I didn’t believe in Hell.
Do sharks eat live meat or is it just carrion for them? I wish I’d learnt more about sharks and less about… less about what? What did I learn in my life?
Money comes to mind. Yes, I feel in my soul that I knew a great deal about money and the instruments of money: stocks, bonds, cash, bundled futures, bulls, bears, sub-prime mortgages, Ponzi Schemes, all of those things resonate very deeply with me. I feel sure footed and clear, on firm ground, confident and even happy when I think about those words. So, I was or I am a money man.
I’ve been executed for something, haven’t I? Murdered. Bound up and thrown into the ocean deep. I must have cheated some pretty bloody hardcore types somehow. I wonder what I did? Can you defraud a criminal? Maybe it’s an honour thing? I can’t even remember my own name let alone what I might have done to a gang prepared to do away with their formerly trusted accountant and fellow gang member. Gang leader, I feel that I was probably the leader of the gang and this is the result of some kind of coup from Lefty Schmidt or One Eye O’Driscoll or Tonio Sabrini.
The sky is disappearing now and I don’t really know if I am alive or dead yet. Maybe this is Purgatory?
I can’t feel myself descending any more but I’m sure I’ve not stopped yet. I imagine this part of the lake? The sea? An ocean? Wherever it is, I reckon it must be deep because why would anybody do this to me in shallow water? Makes no sense. You’d have to be stupid psychopath. You never seem to read about stupid psychopaths. Psychopathy must be related to intelligence.
The shark is back. I know that sharks don’t lick their lips, I do know this, don’t I? But,well, I’m sure that one just did.
Why aren’t I more scared? Not of the shark particularly, I don’t know much about sharks and this one doesn’t look very large, but why aren’t I scared about what I’m about to become?
Maybe I’m already dead. How do you judge that? I think therefore I am? Really? What if there is an afterlife after all?
Is ‘do I think therefore I am’ even pertinent if you’re dead? What about in Purgatory? I must still be high on whatever they gave me to knock me out.
It made their life easier. Not much of a lesson to me though. Not if I can’t even remember what I did. How is this a lesson to others? Maybe the perpetrators videoed it? Maybe my death is on YouTube or Vimeo or TikTok or Facebook or Insta? I bet it’ll get taken down though. Maybe it’s on the Dark Web? Maybe I’m Internet Famous?
Does the fact that I’m thinking mean I’m not dead? Am I thinking? Or am I just firing off random electrical signals?
This is frustrating. Hello again shark. Really. Not knowing. I thought death would be a great deal more clear cut than it seems to be: one second you’re alive, all systems go, feeling things: hunger, pain, love, full bladder, empty heart, elation, desolation, frustration, and the next second you’re dead. A very definite barrier is crossed and things change. That’s what I thought would happen. That’s what every single thing I’ve ever read or seen or been told leads me to believe would happen. It appears not to be the case.
There goes the shark again.
I wish I’d done more research into drowning but that’s just not one of those areas of learning I really considered. I’d like to know what’s happening to my body, or what happened. As it is I’m sinking, weighed down, hands bound with no idea about me. That’s a first. I’m quite the narcissist or I was.
I’ve just realised something. This is a time dilation thing. I could be inhabiting the very last second of my life and it might just go on and on and on. This is why I can’t feel myself descending and why I can hear myself think. I’m just caught in time. In which case, that shark is moving very fast or very slow because here it comes again. Hello shark.
The existence of the moving shark would indicate that this is not a time dilation thing at all. What is it then? I don’t feel cold, my lungs aren’t on fire, I’m not struggling to be free.
How did I get here? If I could remember that then everything else might fall into place. How did I get here, in deep water, shackled and cuffed?
Maybe I am an escapologist and this is a show? Seems unlikely. I base that entirely on the fact that I’m still shackled and cuffed and I’m fairly certain that I’ve stopped trying to hold my breath. It’s getting dark now.
Am I a crap escapologist? A first timer? Can’t see it. I’ve not tried to escape.
Oh, for fuck’s sake (excuse my language, God, if you’re listening) does this darkness means I’m very deep beneath the waves or that I’ve finally died? All I want is some clarity here. That’s not much to ask is it?
Am a suicide? Once again, I doubt it. The chain-work doesn’t look like something I’d do. Not my style as far as I know. That’s just a feeling in my, what would I call it? My soul? That’ll do. Also, I can’t see me going to all this trouble, especially not the handcuffs, when a load of pills and booze, or a quick jump off a tall building would have done the job. I mean, where’s the performance here? No one’s going to find my body, not with the weights and the deep water and this shark.
Hello shark.
That definitely doesn’t feel in my soul like something I’d want. Christ, I would have wanted mourners and a story on the news, and traffic stopped in the streets and ambulances and sobbing. Not this anonymous drop to the depths and eaten by a shark? Devoured!
The shark’s just nudged my back. If sharks don’t eat carrion then maybe I am not dead. Honestly though, I can’t see any shark worth the name ignoring a relatively fresh piece of sitting duck meat like me. I’d actually prefer to be devoured by a shark than to be nipped away at by crabs or, God forbid, hoovered up by prawns and mussels.
That strikes me as ignominious.
Hold on a second, I can feel myself being pulled up! Maybe this is a time dilation thing after all and I’m just being taught a lesson by a nefarious gang, by my own gang!
Maybe this is what passes for banter in the underworld?
God, I don’t think I do want to die actually. Not that I’d really thought about it. My soul tells me I’m more of a “go for it!” than a “go with the flow” type of guy or gal.
There’s a definite tug, a pull, a wrench, a sharp one too.
I’m not actually tethered to anything that could bring me up to the surface. That tug is the shark, I think it’s taken a bite. It has. It’s taken a bite out of my back. Ouch.
Seriously, that’s painful. At least I imagine it would have been had I been able to feel anything any more. I wish I could get Google down here then I’d be able to work out if sharks eat carrion or not because that would tell me if I am dead or alive.
Oh, there goes a leg, and here come some other sharks. Big ones. My old pal has moved off quickly. Run! Run! Run! Swim! Oh, here they come, the black-eyed brutes. I wonder if once they’ve done with me I’ll still be able to think? What if one of them eats my head, not whole, but crunches down on it, swallows my brains, turns my skull into flour. Do I just stop then?
There are six of them, bickering, circling and, and, and here we go!
