“I’ve never been to Eastern Europe, but I’ve definitely experienced the Black Sea,” said Darren Davis of Nashville, Tennessee, regarding his recent drop into the depths of depression. “Unless you’ve got some hardcore deep-sea diving experience, I would not necessarily recommend it.”
As Davis explained it, his plummet into despair didn’t exactly catch him off guard. “I’d been flirting with hopelessness for a long time,” he said. “It was fun for a while. But I didn’t realize that this was no game.”
According to Davis, after some touch-and-go instances of pleasant melancholy, along with a few bipolar episodes, the heavy weight of despair got hold of him and dragged him down to the bottom of the Black Sea. “On the plus side," he noted, "I hadn’t known much about marine life before this. It’s a whole other world down there.”
And serendipitously, his involuntary dive to the bottom of the Black Sea did not result in Davis's death. “I have pretty good lung capacity, which served me well," he said. "I’m a runner.”
Ultimately, however, it was a dolphin who saved Davis from drowning in his own pool of misery. “He saw I was in distress and nudged me back up to the surface with his cute little bottle nose. Dolphins are the best.”
And these days, says Davis, it’s the very thought of dolphins that keeps him from getting too down. “They’re so cute and sweet, and also brave,” he said. “I really admire them.”
Despite his narrow escape, Davis is not ruling out another dive into the blackness of sorrow. “It definitely took my mind off more mundane problems. Plus, I, of course, enjoyed interacting with the dolphin. So I’m not exactly seeking it out, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever to end up back in the murky depths. I’ll just see how it goes.”
