I screamed when he hit me. And I screamed more and more as he dangled in the air dripping upon me. His feet and his legs were bare of all flesh. Remnants of tendons flailed his bones.

His pelvis was stripped of flesh. His stomach and intestines were gone. The ribs up to the point where he floated were exposed. Only his heart and lungs were still covered by flesh. Yet he was alive.

Half man. Half skeleton. His hands and arms to just above his elbows were bare bones. Yet still he moved them. And he smiled and sang. And from these motions he swung back and forth from the halyard, hanging from the sling, twisting about just above the deck. And I crawled away vomiting and screaming. I sought a place to hide, but there was no place to hide.

I passed out for thirty minutes. When I came to he was still dangling from the sling, with nervous twitches from tattered tendons; his bones clattered with the hollow acoustic sound of a bamboo wind chime. And still he lived.

16.50 hrs:

Just went to the winch, untied the halyard, and began to lower what was left of Matthew. But at the point that the bones of his toes touched the deck, I lost courage and tied the winch off.

I went down below, got a knife, and began to cut long narrow strips from the Egyptian sails. After an hour of this I went back outside to wrap the bones that were so hideously exposed. When Matthew's skeleton kicked out at the touch of its foot, I screamed.

It took two hours to complete the wrapping of Matthew. When I was finished, I went back to the winch and untied the halyard. There he was: somewhere between being a mummy and a skeleton, still hanging in the sling. Only his eyes and mouth moved. His eyes lolled from sky to sea and then to me. From his lips came the same cat-purr of a contented song. I lowered him onto the deck. I recoiled in horror as his limbs began to shake. His legs disabled, he rolled himself over onto what remained of his chest, and like a partially cocooned maggot wiggled himself toward the side of the boat. I was still backing away when he reached his destination and slipped head first into the weeds.

I called to Brian. Tried to explain. Brian said the seaweed was good. He said it was soothing. He wouldn't come out.

18.20 hrs:

Brian is still calling to me. I think it is time to launch my journal. I still don't understand what is happening.