Spring Meditation - late April

It's my 70th birthday and today I am deep sea diving to 4 miles. As I climb into my new phenosuit, I reflect on how amazing things are these days; trip to the sun, teleportation and volcanic power cells - all science fiction to me not so long ago.
As I jump into the icy water I have no visibilty into the depth of water. One last gasp of atmostpheric air and I commence the submergence. My suit is working perfectly and I am unafraid really as the caplight ignites for me. Visibility is still reduced, it will take some time for my surroundings to emerge, well I hope so anyway.
Down I go, down, down.




Still nothing to see really. I have been sinking now for...how long? My dive buddies are all mechanical today so no fellow human being to share this experience with. Still, it is probably safer to dive with the seadevil drones anyway.
How far can I see now? I reckon visibility is about 2 metres now. I am at..tap tap... 2.5 miles down apparently. It has been about 2 and a half hours to get here? I am feeling slightly cold, perhaps my suit is not working. I had better get a drone to check it.
I gesture to the nearest green buddy...but, what's this? I gesture again, no reply or response? That's odd, I can see him, why can't he see me? I try again...still no response. I'm sure he is looking my way.



A small shard of panic creeps in. I do feel cold now, and start to either shiver or tremble. The thought that things may go badly makes me consider aborting my adventure and ascending back up. If those drones are going to ignore me I will have to ascend on my own which could be dangerous in itself.
Just as I am considering my situation, a purple drone turns and check-gestures my position. I quickly wave in a 'help' way and three of them approach in the gloom. Thank goodness for that. I am able to communicate my predicament and purple clicks my suit. Warmth starts to return. However, a strange chill which has nothing to do with temperature seems to remain.

It has been 3 hours and 55 minutes and so we are nearly the full 4 miles down. Soon I will see the ocean floor of the great north sea. I can't seem to stop shaking, which means that my experience is not as enjoyable as it could be. The drones have gestured that there is no suit malfunction so it is just me, the human, feeling fear perhaps. This fear is very strange though. I'm not used to having this sensation.