the awful, awful! septimus

"But he himself remained high on his rock, like a drowned sailor on a rock. I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I went under the sea. I have been dead, and yet am now alive, but let me rest still; he begged (he was talking to himself again — it was awful, awful!); and as, before waking, the voices of birds and the sound of wheels chime and chatter in a queer harmony, grow louder and louder and the sleeper feels himself drawing to the shores of life, so he felt himself drawing towards life, the sun growing hotter, cries sounding louder, something tremendous about to happen."

Septimus is alone-- truly alone.  His PTSD has isolated him to the point where he sits in Regent Park, but still feels stranded from society.  Even doctors, supposedly experts of health, can provide little help his situation.  The events of World War I have left him "dead".  Septimus sits in the park and reveals the paradox that rules his life: he has "been dead, and yet [is] now alive".  But he knows he has only momentarily escaped his fate.  Like a sailor that has survived the initial crash of a ship into a rock, he sits isolated, waiting either for the seas to rip him back into the black water, or to die a lonesome death perched on the rock.  His own isolation is represented in Woolf's use of syntax.  By adding parenthesis of his own response, a conversation occurs; except this is dialogue is with himself.  As this except continues, hope shines through.  He hears "the voices of birds and the sound of wheels" as he sits on his rock.  This is not in real.  No birds would be flying in the middle of the ocean during a storm, no wheels would be anywhere near him; this is death-- beautiful and comforting-- welcoming-- like the Sirens luring sailors to drown themselves-- Septimus to it.  Like the Sirens luring sailors to drown themselves.