The bottom dropped out of my stomach and the morning's breakfast of coagulated instant porridge whirl-pooled toward the exit. Blood began gushing into my extremities accompanied by bolts of white-hot tingling electricity coursing down my arms jolting through my fingers and seemingly erupting from their tips. Cold perspiration burst forth from pores joining into rivulets trickling along my skin soaking into awkward regions of absorbent fabric. My heart was pounding a persistent, urgent pulsing in my eardrums. It felt as if oxygen was no longer entering the blood stream. I was a fish suddenly finding itself out of water revving up for fight or flight.
I felt completely trapped. My inner animal was hopelessly cornered by the hideous pincers of modern society. One of which was an endless onslaught of bills, bills, bills which rendered flight tantamount to suicide, or perhaps less dramatically, leaping from a stressful frying pan into a flaming crisis. The other was because I am not an animal but a social citizen, well debatably social in my personal case, who is part of a civilized global population where fight, in general, and most especially on a personal scale, is deeply frowned upon.
“Captain?” spoke a young sailor softly. His gaze remained fixed on the horizon as he lowered a pair of binoculars.
“Yes, what is it?” replied the gruff old captain glaring intently at a nautical map spread across his desk.
“Captain?” the sailor repeated turning to face the old man. He was trying to urge him into animation with a nervous stare. “You really need to take a look at this, captain.” He reached out the binoculars toward the man who was patently ignoring his request.
“One moment George,” the captain replied waving a hand dismissively toward his young assistant. “One last adjustment to our bearing first,” he continued calmly, drawing a dark line on the map with his straight edge.
“Captain, this is urgent!”
Sudden flashes of the Titanic disaster flickered to life in the old man’s mind. “Nah,” he dismissed them, “too far South for icebergs,” he thought, looking up from the map at last. Yet the terrified look on the young sailor’s face shook him deeply. “Alright George. Alright. What is it?” He walked over to the young man and grabbed his binoculars.