7. Wildlife. Another journal entry from Sophie comes next, and she says that she, Cody, and Brian took the dinghy to land after anchoring The Wanderer in the harbor at Block Island. She notes how Brian is a “fusspot,” rolling up his jeans so that they won’t get wet along the beach, and constantly checking his watch, announcing the time every ten minutes. She writes that, even though she’s back on land, the world around her already feels more “fluid and relaxed,” but she’s excited to get out on the open ocean, “where time is all connected.”
A radical difference between Brian and Sophie’s personalities is further revealed here. While Brian is obsessed with maintaining a sense of rigidity and order, Sophie actually wants to escape order—to go to where time seems like it’s all connected, where it’s one big present moment, not something divisible into the measurable minutes Brian constantly counts