Chained in the brig, iron shackles lacerating my hands to the knuckle, the ancient maritime vessel groaned as if to say she’d seen better days; then heaved to, cresting another thirty-footer and barreled down its backside. Hanging from the chain, I felt weightless. Into the bottomless blue valley. The ship was capsized by a rogue wave that must have topped 60 feet. Then, by some miracle, it popped back up to the surface like a cork. We would be dashed to pieces. My wrists chaffed gruesomely as I dangled from the shackles. The water rushed in; and I wondered which breath would be my last.

 

From places vast and terrifying came violent sounds as the earth was torn asunder. A massive explosion rocked the island when lava met the ocean. Seconds later another lightning bolt tore a new hole in the sky. I couldn’t breathe without hawking up soot. Even as an easy breeze slipped into me, my lungs rejected it. I was drowning in the air. There was too much. The wind built to a steady blow and hurled away into space. Every explosion hailed another onslaught of molten fireballs; they rained down indiscriminately. Lava flows lugubriously rolled down the mountainside, setting everything to blazes before entombing it, forever. Exploding when it reached the water.

 

Still underwater, I found a sudden strength and fought like hell to reach the surface. I couldn’t reach lifegiving oxygen, an invisible weight held me under. The oxygen in my lungs was nearly cooked. No matter how hard I swam, I hovered ten feet below the surface.

 

The sea was littered with broken bits of the ship. Rocks from the volcano continued fell from the sky, at less frequent intervals. Soon the ship was below the waterline, then below me. Just as I was overcome by the lack of oxygen, I could feel the ship’s gravity pulling us into the deep.

 

Finally, my lungs exploded and I prepared to fill my lungs with water...instead, I inhaled sweet, delicious fresh air. My vision cleared and I saw a gorgeous Indian woman shaking me really, really hard. I started coughing up goober city. “Were you drowning or in a plane crash?” My wife asked snarkily, knowing me so well that she could anticipate my dreams. She rested the C-PAP mask on the table, where it sat full of warm water, acting innocent. Like what, who me, drown you?