It fit the damaged hull.

It fit the empty boat.

It was, the officials told me, the only logical explanation anyone could offer.

I understood why they needed one.

The living require a story, even a terrible one, because a story can be stood on and a void cannot.

The officials were not unkind; they were doing the humane thing, which was to hand me the most probable account so that I would have something solid to build a surviving life around.

An undercurrent.