And it stopped. As rapidly as it had started, the currents lost their circling force as the tide ended and the whirlpool disappeared.

Just in that way. That quickly.

It stopped and he rose unknowing, unfeeling, rose like a piece of wood, not thinking, until his head broke the surface and he hacked water out of his throat, his lungs, and sucked in such gasps of air it sounded like a killer whale spouting.

‘Aaarrrgggh!’

And he was not dead, not ended, could hear the sound he made and could see the trees and feel the air.

Sweet air.

Air made of honey.

And close by was the canoe, also disgorged by the current, and further away but floating enough so he could see it was the blanket bundle. The canoe was right side up, though full of water, and he found the tie rope from the bow and pulled it – struggling with the effort – towards the blanket bundle. Here he jammed the wet bundle into the submerged canoe and put the tie cord in his teeth and started working towards shore. He found this did not work very well – the canoe barely moved – so he spit out the cord, went around to the stern, and started to push.

It was still terribly slow, hard work. The small craft hardly moved. But pushing it was at least slightly better than pulling it with his teeth and he aimed it generally towards the shore – which seemed an impossible distance away – and tried to build a rhythm to his kicking and pushing.

Lunge, kick, lunge-kick . . .

A time passed, a seeming lifetime of cold water and aching muscles, and in this time he found himself lost in thought. Where had the monster come from; how did it work? Why didn’t he die – yet again? Could it be his fates, Odin, taking a hand and wanting him to live? And here he smiled. Broken, tired, teetering on the edge of being sick of it all, sick of travelling north, sick of pushing this stubborn, sunken canoe through the water, he smiled. And thought, perhaps I’m part eel and easy to puke up. That might be what saved me. Eel blood in my veins and the water found me easy to puke back up . . .

Nonsense thoughts. Lunge, kick, think, lunge-kick-think.

And finally – and he thought it was truly final; he seemed to have nothing left – he felt, almost sensed, the bow of the canoe bump against a shore and he looked up and ahead to see an island.