The dream first came to him when he was twelve, and it would often return at unexpected times. In that dream he was in a small skiff, all alone, in the middle of the ocean. Wherever he looked, he could see nothing but the horizon, a huge circle around him. There were no islands, no ships. There were no large waves, nothing disturbed the surface of the water except a few small ripples gently rocking his boat. He was holding an oar, and was slowly paddling. It seemed peaceful, but the dream left him with a feeling of impending, overwhelming dread. The ocean revealed nothing, a perpetual mystery, but what if something sucked his boat down into the depths? What if a sea monster appeared before him, a kind he’d never even heard of, and ferociously attacked? What if the boat carried him into a whirlpool? What if he never saw anything or anyone ever again, and spent the rest of his life in loneliness and silence? Would he find a place to land, or would he be drifting in uncertainty forever?…