The Drowned World

A biologist named Dr. Robert Kerans watches the sunrise from a hotel balcony. Once again, he expects, the day will be unbearably hot. Kerans usually wakes up well before sunrise so that he can travel to the testing station before the day becomes “intolerable” (17). Because the hotel is air conditioned, he does not want to leave. He delays his departure until a patrol boat passes the hotel. He expects to see Colonel Riggs on this boat, with whom he might share a conversation, though Riggs is apparently delayed. Instead, Kerans watches the thermal storms and small tornadoes that increase in number as the day becomes warmer. Kerans tells himself that the storms are the reason he did not go to the testing station, but he knows that his job is largely irrelevant. Very few people read his scientific reports, and everything is progressing exactly as “anticipated twenty years earlier” (19).

Colonel Riggs and his team will finish their survey at the end of the month. Then, they will travel north and transport the testing station with them. Kerans is one of the last guests in the Ritz hotel. He struggles to accept that, very soon, the hotel and the entire city will be swallowed by the rising sea.