Jacob had dreamt of this moment for years: his own sleek sailboat, crafted from golden-brown teak, its lines pure and classical, as though plucked from the canvas of a master painter. It was a piece of art, a vessel he envisioned cutting through the waves, carrying him to untouched horizons. He imagined himself completely immersed in the natural world, unfettered by modern life and its entanglements, free to contemplate the universe and himself.

The first fifteen days were a blend of exhilaration and quiet satisfaction. He charted his course, sailed under vast, open skies, watched the stars at night, and felt the rhythmic lull of the sea. There was no one to impress, no need to play any part other than his own, and he thought of it as his own personal Eden.

But by the third week, something began to gnaw at him—a feeling he hadn’t anticipated. Boredom, first appearing as a subtle itch, began to spread. The emptiness of the horizon, once so alluring, now seemed indifferent. Each day bled into the next, devoid of variety, save for unpredictable moments of sheer terror when storms loomed on the edge of the sky, throwing him into frantic action. In these moments, he’d clutch the wheel with white knuckles, feeling the boat fight the elements, and wonder if he’d survive.

When the skies cleared, however, he was left alone again, adrift with only himself for company. He found his thoughts echoing, looping in a way that unsettled him. He’d read somewhere about Oscar Wilde, imagining he’d find solace in the solitude of prison, only to discover how loathsome it really was. Now Jacob understood Wilde’s despair—the grime, the confinement, the poor food—all of it eroding his fantasies.

It struck him that his fantasy of two years of sailing had little to do with reality. The dream had been a vision, an image, carefully curated in his mind. He’d pictured long days of serene, purposeful solitude, where he would finally become the man he always imagined himself to be. But he was discovering that the man he’d brought aboard was not the man he wanted to spend two years with.

Worse still, he found no desire to “improve” this person, no will to grapple with his own shortcomings. The sea, vast and indifferent, forced him to confront himself, and he disliked what he saw. Resentment grew. He realized he was trapped on a boat that had, in its own way, become a prison.

Without company, he began to let things slide. He stopped shaving, then bathing, and the inside of the boat descended into chaos. Dishes piled up in the sink, food containers lay strewn across the counters, and his clothes formed a pile on the floor. The outside of the sailboat remained as pristine as the day he’d set sail, a glistening promise of something timeless and noble. But inside, it had become a mirror of his disillusionment: neglected, disordered, decaying.

Months stretched ahead, and he felt he could no longer bear them. His fantasy had unraveled, and he was bound to it. There was no going back, no way to admit his failure to others, for he feared the humiliation of revealing that his great adventure had soured. And so, he drifted, not toward some far-off land, but further into himself—a man adrift on a sea of his own making, with nowhere left to go but deeper into his own solitude.