At first, I thought it was a hallucination. Human brains are capable of incredible things when pushed to the limit, and ten days stranded in the middle of the ocean would push anyone to the brink of sanity. I’d woken from a restless sleep under the blistering sun to see a seagull perched on the end of my raft. I blinked and unconsciously picked at the peeling skin on my shoulder as I tried to figure out if the creature was real without scaring it off. It was poised on the bow of the boat like an ancient ship’s figurehead, beak facing forwards and beady eyes staring into the blue nothingness. As I leaned closer, the gull finally turned and faced me. Instinctively, as if I were beckoning a beloved cat, I outstretched a hand towards the bird and he quickly took off into the sky. The sudden grief of being alone again was momentarily more crippling than the constant, looming fear of death. I laid back on the raft and let myself waste precious energy on crying.

The next morning, it was there again. It’d settled in the same spot, on the bow of the raft, but this time it was facing me. I hardly breathed as I locked eye contact with the seagull. Minutes ticked by. Finally, desperate to feel some kind of connection to another living creature, I dared to talk.

“Hi buddy,” I whispered, my voice scratchy. The bird tilted its head, regarding me. A few tense seconds passed before it defecated on my boat and flew away. I couldn’t help but emit a laugh at this turn of events. It was a short bark of a laugh that hurt my throat, but it reminded me I was still alive.

On my twelfth day stranded at sea, the seagull was late. The midday sun was beating down on my red, blistered scalp and I’d just about given up hope of seeing it again, when the flapping of white wings caught my attention. My friend flew to its usual spot and it took me a moment to realise what the strange movement by its face was; there was a small fish thrashing it its beak. The bird dropped the fish onto the boat and I stared at it, waiting for the prey to get eaten. Instead, my friend watched me, tilting its head and I remained seated. Slowly, a strange realisation swept over me and I reached for the herring. Had the gull caught it for me? As my hands clasped around the writhing fish, the seagull took flight and left me to my meal.

I awoke the following day with an immediate and overwhelming sense of unease. Something was wrong. As I cautiously gained consciousness, I realised; I wasn’t moving. I’d become so accustomed to the constant bob and sway of the boat that stillness felt entirely foreign, like when you’ve been on a trampoline for so long the ground suddenly seems wrong. As my eyes adjusted to the bright light of the day, a gasp caught in my throat; I was on a shore. My raft had washed up on a beach and finally, finally, there was earth beneath me again. As I disembarked my boat, I saw a familiar figure out of the corner of my eye.

My friend stood proudly on the shore, head tilted and eyes watching me rejoin the world.