A long, long time ago, but in a universe right here, I was sitting in a survival class for Student Naval Aviators. A lot of it was boring but at one point they played a tape of a naval aviator who had been shot down and floated in his life raft for a couple of days before being picked up. He said he had hallucinated after a while and thought he was having a conversation with a seagull. For some reason that really stayed with me. Later I decided to use it as an exercise in a writing class. Finally I decided to put it on this blog. Enjoyl