Risk and Unease

I finished Risk the other day. I’m in the UK, I have some time, I read a Dick Francis I’ve never read before. If you’re surprised by any of that, then you don’t know me well. 

I forgot to post the first line, so I’ll do it here. 

Thursday, March 17, I spent the morning in anxiety, the afternoon in ecstasy, and the evening unconscious. Thursday night, somewhere between dark and dawn, I slowly surfaced into a nightmare which might have been all right if I’d been asleep.

Not the best first line, but the first part of the book is a bit of a slog, so I suppose its in keeping with that. 

What I find funny is that the first part of Risk deals with the protagonist getting kidnapped and thrown onto a boat. Well, one of the fatal flaws that our protagonist has is that he gets seasick. Like violently seasick. Francis goes into long long paragraphs where I actually found myself thinking, Hurry Up will ya?

So what’s that have to do with anything?

I got off the train the other day to find myself in Inverness, Scotland. It was an 8 hour ride. As soon as I sat down I was immediately seasick. Huge swells continued to hit me as I sat in the hotel chair. I had to ask the person with me, is the floor moving? (It was not, and I got a weird look in return). 

Apparently, this is called disembarkment syndrome. It’s the feeling of moving even after the train, cruise, or car stops. I’ve been on long trips before, but never had this before. It was pretty funky and fun at the same time. I’m glad now, three days later, that it’s over, but it was an interesting feeling to feel like I was riding through huge breakers while sitting on a sofa.