I know you’re not supposed to swim in the ocean alone. No matter how shallow the water may be, you should always have someone with you if you’re going in. Who would drag me out if I got a cramp, if my eardrum burst? Ugh, whatever: I’d go back down right this minute, all the way down to where I feel the weight of the water crushing me, and maybe drowning will be my farewell after all – a more poetic end than a coma, at any rate, or than spending the rest of my life missing a limb, or blind. My weak skin rebukes me a little, I’m swimming back to the rock, one stroke, another stroke, feeling my body softened by the depths, light-headed. Just a few more minutes and I’ll reach the stone steps, I look into the water to see if I can spot any black urchins, I step carefully and emerge, utterly refreshed, returning to the vista of used rubbers.

This is San Andrés, horny, lusty, it’s only natural – but does it really have to be so obscene? Why can’t two people, or three, who cares, have the best orgasm of their lives in the bushes, facing the ocean, and then clean up their fucking rubbers? It enrages me. I put on the sandals I brought and reach for the towel in my bicycle basket, then look for the monitor in my knapsack pocket, leaving my mask and fins behind. I glance at the sensor on my wrist… fuck! It’s gone, it came off, I’ve lost it again, like the one I dropped on my way to the barrier. I haven’t brought my glucometer, I’m an idiot. Fucking people who don’t love themselves – I curse them even though they have nothing to do with it.