Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men - By Regan Wolfrom Page 0,43

with the radio,” I said.

Breccan nodded. I think she was glad to have a chance to get away from the cockpit.

I spent twenty minutes talking to no one on the handheld before Darrel told me to take a break. We’ve got plenty of diesel we no longer need for the dead engine, but I guess if we don’t get into the habit of conserving power we’ll run out sooner than we think.

I sat down beside him, on the opposite side from Jon, who was still staring out over the water.

“It’s getting cold,” I said to no one specific.

“Summer’s over,” Darrel said. “And we won’t be able to turn on the heater tonight.”

“That’s okay. Breccan and I have gotten used to not having air conditioning in our apartment. Frostbite’ll be a nice change of pace.”

He smiled at me.

I felt bad for Darrel. He’d wanted to show off to a few classmates, maybe trick me into bed with him, and now he had to sit around feeling guilty. He was not the first person to get in way over his head. It’s like those people that get lost in Death Valley, getting their car stuck in the middle of the desert. They wanted to go on a nice little adventure with their kids and their GPS unit, but then all of a sudden they were on their way to dying of thirst.

Five days ago my shoes and socks were soaked from stepping in a puddle on Spirit Lake Trail. Now I’m as thirsty as I can ever remember being.

If it doesn’t rain soon we’ll die the same way they die in Death Valley. We’re surrounded by water we shouldn’t drink, our bodies slowly shutting down from thirst.

It might be better to drown myself first.

FRIDAY - Four Days Adrift

I DON’T know if the radio’s broken. I don’t think there’s any way to know for sure.

But I do know that we’ve been trying to get help on it for four days now, and we’ve gotten nowhere.

SUNDAY - Six Days Adrift

DARREL TOLD us a story today about a motorcycle that had washed up inside a shipping container on Graham Island; he says that the currents are bringing everything from Japan to the West Coast, so it’s only a matter of time before we wash up back along the BC shore.

I’ve taken the lead with the rationing. We’ll have enough food for six more days if we stretch it out as much as I’ve planned, but that isn’t the worst of our problems. We don’t have enough water to make it that long.

There’s a rule we all know, not from being pre-med but from watching a lot of cable TV. It’s 3-3-3: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. We’ll be out of water by tomorrow.

MONDAY - Seven Days Adrift

I WOKE up late and found that the water wasn’t the only thing gone. Someone had taken the rations out, and there was no way for me to know whether they’d eaten all of them or just hidden them somewhere on the boat.

I didn’t have the energy to tear the place apart. And I didn’t know who’d done it.

“You’ve fucking killed us,” Breccan said to Darrel over a lunch of nothing. We were all in the salon hiding from the chill outside.

“We’re not dead yet,” he said.

“Well you’ve stranded us and stolen all of the rations,” Jon said. “So you’re doing a good job of it so far.”

“Nice try. I’m not the one who took the rations. I’m not stupid enough to eat all of our food in one sitting. I only know one person on board who’s dumb and fat enough to do that, Jon.”

They were looking at each other the way you’d expect two guys to look at each other a couple seconds before they beat each other half to death, but they were both too exhausted to do more than stare.

That was a clue in itself, really.

“One of us took the rations,” I said. “There aren’t any raccoons on board. And I know it wasn’t me.”

“We don’t know it wasn’t you,” Breccan said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m just saying. There’s no proof.”

“I was asleep.”

“How do we know you didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to steal them? Maybe that’s why you slept in.”

“There’s no way Steph did it,” Darrel said.

“You wanting to fuck her isn’t proof that she’s innocent,” Breccan said with a smirk.

I decided that I had enough energy to handle that. “You’re a real bitch,