Almost Like A Dream
2004-01-17 - 12:58 a.m.

The night was cold, but the water was colder. He thrashed wildly, his hands grasping desperately for anything that would supplement his tired limbs. He bobbed like a cork, and the frigid water rushed over his head again. He tried not to panic until he realized that he could no longer feel his arms or legs. He willed them to keep moving, but they refused. He felt himself sinking, sinking, sinking…

His eyes opened, and he stared upward. The textured ceilings looked like the angry surface of the lake, and even his warm blankets felt as though they might pull him under the bed at any minute. He threw them off and sat on the edge of the bed, shivering and still trying to catch his breath.

He walked downstairs and poured himself a cup of tea. He chose to skip the ice.

As he sat drinking, he felt like the water was washing over him again, and he shuddered involuntarily. He began to be pulled under, and he stood up, and briefly considered standing on the chair. Deciding that this would be ridiculous, he sat down, finished his tea, and began the trek back upstairs. He kept imaging he saw great waves trying to knock him back down the staircase, and he cowered before every hallucination.

When he finally made it to his bedroom, his door was closed. He was nearly certain he'd left it open. He opened it, and a roomful of water met his dimunitive frame. It was cold, and it was a lot heavier than he would have expected. It pushed him toward the stairs, and then over the railing. It wasn’t an especially high staircase, but the human body can be a fragile thing. Two degrees to the right, and the fall would’ve paralyzed him from the neck down. As it was, he couldn’t move, but he felt like he was floating. At least, he felt that way until he stopped feeling anything at all.

When the body was discovered by fishermen the next day, it was bobbing in the river like a cork. They, being simple anglers and not medical practitioners, had no idea whether the fall or temperature of the water killed him, but they were quite certain he was dead.

The coroner, when asked about the cause of death, said that it had been the fall combined with the freezing cold of the Wabash River in January.

Seeing the family's horrified faces, he tried his best to comfort them. “Freezing isn't a bad way to go," he said. "Once the cold sets in, the victim just fades out. It’s almost like a dream.”