Drowning

Joe has been badly injured from war. He is covered in bandages, blind, unable to speak, and the doctors had to remove his arms. He is really upset about this because without his arms, he can’t hold his girlfriend, Kareen. Because he is deaf, all he hears is a very loud ringing that brings him back to an earlier memory of when a phone call came from his mother telling him to come home because his father died.
When Joe is in the hospital, he is in very bad condition. He is barely alive, and in severe pain. Machines are breathing for him and he has to have food pumped into his stomach. He can’t communicate with other people and has a hard time figuring out what is reality and what isn’t. He compares his thought process to drowning because he can’t differentiate what is happening and the conscious, to the unconscious. He keeps drifting in and out of awareness, like struggling against staying above water.