I don’t know what’s wrong. I ought to have been afraid. That’s how they died, you know. But I wasn’t afraid, and I’m still not afraid, and that frightens me.

I don’t know how asleep I was, but I must have been very asleep not to think about it. I was lying down in a boat, just my size, so that I could feel the sides with my head and feet. But I knew where I was going without sitting up: I was travelling down the river, and it all looked very beautiful.

There weren’t any clouds above me in the sky, and the river was brown but clear, and all the trees were green and all the flowers were in bloom. The boat was about half full with water. It soaked my clothing and my hair and it made the heels of my feet all pruny, and it was rather cool, but I couldn’t get up to get out of it. I was trapped but I wasn’t afraid.

The sun rose and set and the stars turned above me, but I still drifted downriver. I should have hit rocks or something along the way, or at least spun along my path, but it was clear and the river widened as streams and creeks joined it.

More water eased in the farther along I got, until it tickled at my nose and ran over my mouth when I wasn’t thinking. I remember waving my fingers through the water, sticking out my stomach to make an island in the water.

Then I heard a great roaring from a distance, and did not know what it was until I saw it: the Sea.

My boat put out to it, and sank beneath the waves, and though I could not breathe I did not mind. It felt like going to sleep.

But I don’t know what it means. I don’t want to sink into the ocean. Drowning scares me. I miss Mummy and Daddy terribly, but I don’t want anything like that.

But in my dream the water wrapped itself around me and held me close, and I was not afraid.