Mick sleeps during the day in the closest thing to a freezer he can find on the island, which just happens to be yet another idyllic cenote. He goes there every night just before dawn and swims to the darkest possible places.

Then he simply exhales and lets himself sink to the floor, dead weight and dead to the world and...looking rather like death twice warmed over when he resurface just after sundown.

In so many words, he is not a pretty sight with his skin seeming to hang too loosely about his frame and under his eyes, and damn but it brings back memories from the trenches, stories of where the soldiers' feet would rot right off the bone from standing around for too long in too much muddy water. He remembers seeing it for himself, milder cases of trench foot, as it came to be called, and he doesn't think he'll ever forget.

It's small comfort, but at least there's not all that many awake at night to bump into him.