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...03:26:19
Memes wash all over me. They cover me. I'm disgusted. I'm sick. The smell is bubonic. My skin slowly absorbs their oil as they ooze to the surface.
My synapses manufacture messages without leave. Each wave of blood washes new impulses through me. I am not in control of anything more than a trawler is in control of the sea. My introspection is the drag net reaching down like an undiscriminating subsurface probe. Threatening at any second to overturn the craft. Dangerous currents are made known to me as the capricious analogue pulses of frayed ropes against callused hands. Rogue waves rush out of the frigid dark. Thick slippery kelp flesh binds my bilge pumps and chokes my turbine. Strange creatures cry out of the night. This sea is alive and I am rudderless and blind.
There is a thankfully obscured food chain churning below me. Below the folds, down deep in the foaming tide the chemical florescence dimly outlines carnage. Memes stalking mnemonic. Primitive impulse sucking on base instinct. Calcium, plasma, and protein leak steadily into the benthic fluid. I can't stare down into my horror. Neither can my eyes make out the black horizon. I double down and retch a fractal bloom into the viscus sway. It floats like jelly. Needle-like fins and translucent mouths begin to break the surface impulsively attracted by the mess. Thousands of them. Distracted from my wretchedness I stare in shock as they multiply. Shining gray bodies breaking into the air. Darker shadows beneath. Blood clouds to the surface as the swells start to boil.
My hands beat against my head. Waves of deep pink static pour into my ears devolving occasionally into confused cries. Visions of corruption. Little bodies squirming over my skin. My stomach turns with the stench. I fall to the deck on hands and knees. This little machine can not suffice. How is a poor aging hulk of steel and wire to patrol this raging sea? Where does the fuel come from that drives the rust through the limitless deep? What an idea it was to take this leaning ocean reporter for a high seas dreadnought! How can I continue to captain this hopeless frigate against lawless entities breeding endlessly far below my reach? The thought of that creature that might expose itself to my feeble hunter's thrust several magnificent seconds before crashing down again into the fray fills me with trembling weakness! Nothing reaches the surface of this post biological soup without that it kills its way into the crowded breach.
I am dazed on the cold wet heaving deck. Rather than continue wiping the oil from my pores. Rather than staring into a storm of contesting troughs. Rather than navigating blindly in the darkness of my limited perception. I should make for the nearest beach. Run aground, wade clear of the wreak, haul myself on to the beach and sleep. Give up the horrifying battle. Disgrace and abandon this clumsy ship. Rather that than wait to be swamped by the waves of hallucination, raw emotion, and psyche. Dragged by the hair screaming down into the wild suffocation of the primordial benthos. Face to face with all the fermented evil forces imaginable. Anything is better than that way. Anything.
Suddenly energized I lurch against the rising waves. Stumble into the rude pilot's house breathing sour spray. Fumbling with locks and latches. Somewhere there may be a lantern, compass and map. A radio and flares to signal distress with. Some hope of salvation away from the bitter wind and the open sea.
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