Morris Bench hated being wet. He was not aquaphobic but much to the amusement of his colleagues, the slickness of sweat or tickling of running water brought him no small amount of irritation. Which made his profession a rather unfortunate circumstance.

You see, Morris was born to a rather strict Jewish family of sailors and like many orthodox Jewish families, he was expected to join the family business.

It did not matter that he had five older brothers who could bare that responsibility. It did not matter that he had a prodigious talent for learning new languages. It did not matter that his heart imprisoned wanderlust that would leave Marco Polo to shame.

No, he was destined to sail a dingy transport boat across the tiny puddle that was the Upper Bay for all his life.

Which was why he thought he could not be blamed to believe that his irony meter had maxed out at red. However, the events of September 16th, 2011 begged to differ.

Despite being promoted to Head Skipper - not of the fleet, mind you, just the boat he had been running since he was thirteen - he had no new responsibilities. Why would he? He was the only skipper and so the illustrious qualifier he had received meant nothing to anyone.

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He was performing his routine checks while returning to the east docks, having just unloaded passengers to the western side of the bay, when the accident occurred.

Adjusting the rigging on his prestigious chunk of scrap metal was physically taxing on the best of days. It didn’t help that this day was particularly humid, increasing his irritation several times over due to the sweat running down his brow.

He was only halfway done at the starboard side of the vessel when a blaring alarm rang out from Governor’s Island - barely a tenth of a nautical mile away. As he leaned out to see what the commotion was all about the rigging snapped and he went sprawling towards the water.

Thankfully he was saved from swimming all the way to shore as the captain had noticed and called, “Man overboard!” The engines were cut and a float was thrown his way, splashing only a few feet away.

He swam to it with the skill of a sailor - which, of course, he was. Much to his dismay.

The deckhand reeled him in as the captain, his second brother, glowered in disappointment. Though perhaps he needn’t have, as no one was more frustrated at getting so thoroughly drenched as Morris himself.

He was almost out of the water when the deckhand paused as a loud splash and the sound of sizzling water reached the boat from the water. It was followed by the smell of ozone.

When the captain and deckhand broke out of their distraction, they found Morris convulsing in his float.