Her body sank in slowly, the warm water encasing it in a familiar embrace. She held her breath as her hair floated above, a light brown oil spill on an ocean of soap bubbles. Small air bubbles escaped from her nose, traveling through her forehead and up to the surface. Her eyes were closed, but her vision was rich with sunny fields and tall wildflowers swaying gently in the wind. A thought from earlier in the day, about a work conflict, slithered into her mind. She brushed it aside quickly and concentrated on her immediate surroundings. Warm. Hug. Beauty. Calm. She raised her head above the surface and took a deep breath.
Back underwater, she recalled the moments leading to that point. A bare step into the tub, a large towel dropping on the floor behind her, a shiver when her body acclimated to the water temperature. She could recall turning the doorknob and entering the bathroom, but the minutes leading up to it had eluded her. The flower fields extended to the horizon. An immense, colorful carpet moving in large waves with an unseen force. She realized birds in the distance, diving into the petals, flying erratically between them, then rising fast, crisscrossing each other on the way up like crossing swords before stalling, diving down, and repeating the pattern. A tickle on her forehead caught her attention. Was it the wind, or a trailing wake from the birds? The warm air stood still around her, and the birds were too far to cause that effect. She reached her hand to the spot and found a hair strand tickling her forehead. Her chest felt heavy. She pulled her stomach muscles and rose to breathe. Eyes closed, she kept following the flock flying hundreds of feet away from her. Three deep breaths, and she relaxed again into the warmth of the abyss.
Being able to stay underwater for long periods was a skill she taught herself as a child. Diving always presented a chance for seclusion and discovery in public places. Swimming pools, the lake at her summer camp, the ocean shore near her grandparents – all presented ample opportunities. Nearby swimmers were abstract, bobbing bodies and moving feet in the water around her. Together with the occasional school of fish swimming by, they became part of the sea life universe she surveilled. She would follow tails and legs with similar wonder; were the creatures leading them happy or sad, friendly or frowners? Were the fish she found swimming alone looking for their mates, or simply curious and adventurous like her? Another game she found even more interesting was Legs Guessing; she would try to predict the ages and facial appearances of people she observed before rising to the surface to confirm the accuracy of her predictions. The game taught her a few important lessons: not every pair of fast-moving legs belonged to an active-looking person, only a few attractive-looking bodies belonged to happy-looking people, and most heavy-set people had deeper-than-expected voices. Age was the hardest thing to estimate from underwater, and her guesses on that were rarely right, let alone close. She applied that last observation to daily life, studying her classmates’ faces during lunch breaks and dividing their appearanceד into younger, proper, and older than their age.
“Do I look young for my age?” she asked her mother one day after returning home from school. Her mother looked at her as if waiting for a follow-up question, then said, “You look very nice, honey.” She pondered asking again, but knew her mother did not appreciate discussing topics of vanity. A few years later, as a teen, she discovered she looked the same age as her friends and looks were only secondary to appearance. Looking cute and sexy was more important than looking your age, and she had plenty of that, considering the level of attention she received from boys from that time on.
Breathe. She sat up in the tub and opened her eyes. The soft light was still overwhelming, and she squinted at the white tiles. She turned the left water knob open and submitted herself to the hot flow that spread from her toes to her thighs and up her back. When the water temperature was almost unbearable, she turned it off and rested back into the water. Her weightless hair tickled her neck, bringing back a recent memory.
She was resting on her back, her eyes peering through the early morning darkness. Her bedroom was completely devoid of light, and her vision was filled with imaginary shapes of vague, dusty lines, swirling in slow motion. Soft touches of fingers-like air caressed her neck. Her mouth curled in a slight smile as she submitted to the intimate touch. Her partner’s breath, steady and quiet next to her, embraced her with comfort and care. Her body was still vibrating with the memories of their lovemaking hours earlier, causing the lines to swirl faster around each other, curl and blend, then fade and emerge as new lines. Head underwater, she tried to freeze time around those peaceful moments, knowing that hours later her partner would part ways with her. She moved slightly in the water, inviting her hair to reignite the intimacy she so craved. A fine memory is better than no memory at all, she thought.
If she only knew all of this back then, when she swam underwater and played her childish games, she could have saved herself from the pain that followed in later years. Instead of swimming back the short distance to shore, she could have joined one of the lonely fish and followed them into the dark, deep wonder that awaited beyond the floats’ rope that marked the swimming limit. She could easily swim the distance past it underwater, come up for air behind a wave, and continue until she was too far to be detected by the lifeguards. Her dark hair would be just another dot on the distant surface. The fish would surely trust her, perhaps introduce her to a dolphin or a sea turtle, who could guide her forward. She would be free, independent, and the deeper she swam, the less any of these worrying thoughts could occupy her mind.
She sat up at once, coughing water from her lungs, fighting to take a deep breath without inhaling back water. That’s how it would have ended. Her visions would turn white, like the tiles she stared at through teary eyes. Sea water would replace the air in her lungs, and the surface would be too high above her to reach in time. The deep wonder would embrace her into it for the last time, giving her an eternal home. Would anyone find her in time to rescue her? Pitiful thoughts. She coughed again, gathered water in her hands, and washed her face. Another wash; this time, she continued the motion, gathering her hair and twisting it into a quick ball. She used both arms to raise herself from the bath, and once standing, she let the water drip down her body. I must stop this deadly game, she thought. A pod of dolphins swam between her legs, darting out of the water and inviting her to join them with splashes of a million sparkling water drops. She smiled at them the way one does with an old friend before parting ways, wrapped herself in a towel, and stepped out of the tub. No more, she decided. She stood firm on the floor. Dry land, she thought, from now and always.