The water turned suddenly cold, and he frantically searched for a switch. But it was nowhere to be found. Panic spread through his body, and once again, he felt the suffocating grip of airlessness.
He abruptly looked up to see the water closing above him, as if two doors were slamming shut. Only a faint sliver of sunlight filtered through. He was drowning. No matter how hard he flailed his arms and legs, he couldn’t push himself to the surface. Constantin didn’t know how to swim.
Slowly, he turned his head and opened his clenched fist. The pearl glimmered in the water, catching the light and falling to the bottom alongside him.
"How beautiful she is," he thought again, the words lingering in his mind.
Cursing under his breath, Constantin struggled to climb out of the bathtub. Water, mixed with remnants of bubbles, trickled down his body. He hurried down the stairs to his studio and approached the painting he had recently completed. The boy was looking back at him – the very same boy who was destined to drown. Or had he already drowned?
His vision blurred, and a familiar pulse throbbed in his temples. His blood pressure began to drop.
"A panic attack," he realized, moving toward the first-aid kit to take his medication.
Each time Constantin thought he had learned to control the process, panic returned with renewed intensity. He tried to calm himself and breathe deeply.
It wasn’t helping. Waves of panic enveloped his mind, and through the fog of consciousness, the boy and the painfully familiar girl kept appearing. Frequently closing his eyes in futile attempts to block out the "film" racing before him, Constantin suddenly realized it was all in his head.
With a trembling hand, he began to rummage through the nightstand for the medication he had promised himself not to take – or at least to take as infrequently as possible. But now, enduring the finale was unbearable. He could almost feel the damp clothing clinging to his skin and the heaviness of the rubber boots.
Finally, he found the pills. He swallowed one without wasting time looking for water to wash it down.
He sat on the floor of the studio, cradling his head in his hands. How heavy it felt. Then he curled up in a fetal position, placing his right hand over his heart while his left hand gripped some object tightly. He could feel chaotic thumps in his palm, as if an inexperienced person were hammering a nail for the first time.