Breathe.
Such a simple thing, isn't it? You bring air into your lungs through your nose or mouth. Beautiful air containing beautiful oxygen into your beautiful greedy fucking lungs. Those cursed organs that always take, take, take, always needing more, more, more...
Your diaphragm contracts, drawing the luscious commodity inside you. Your intercostal muscles, thoracic cavity, lung pressure, all these things work together to get that life-bringing resource where it's needed. Your lungs make use of alveoli to transmute the oxygen into your bloodstream, which furthers it on to the rest of your body.
Without oxygen, your body shuts down.
Funny what kind of thoughts go through a person's head when they're drowning.
Here I am, spending my final moments reviewing what I'd learned in last summer's lifeguard training. Most people probably didn't pay attention to the information we were taught (at least not any more than required for a passing grade), but I found it fascinating.
Maybe I should be panicking. Wouldn't that be the natural reaction? I remember that being a part of the lesson. My instructor, a middle-aged woman with bleach-blonde hair wrapped up in a bun as tight as the smile on her face walked to the front of the room and asked us what it was like to drown.
"Long!" shouted a particularly annoying boy sitting on the ground, leaned up against the wall. Some of us listened from inside our indoor therapy pool, while others lounged about in the chairs or various spots on the cement flooring. I sat criss-cross on a sun lounger with my pinstraight hair tucked behind sunburnt ears. Up until this point I'd been admiring my tanned legs and planning a trip to Sephora to pick up a new liquid foundation for the summer. At the word "drowning" I could almost physically feel my interest level rising. I'm not like, fascinated with death or anything, but I'm interested in the medical aspects of most things. I wanted to be an ER doctor someday, and I'd probably end up seeing a drowning victim eventually.
Our instructor shook her head at his answer. "Not always. A person can drown in as little as twenty seconds."
He whistled. "Damn, Chief, then why are we even here? They're a goner."
A handful of the teens in the room laughed. A few turned to Chief (as we all fondly referred to her) with expectant faces, wondering how she'd respond.
"We're here to prevent them from drowning, not just to save them if they manage to find a way to do it." She raised her eyebrow. "Any further questions, or can I go on?"
He waved his hand in a dismissve gesture.
She took a breath.
A breath. Fuck, what I would give for a breath right now. I can feel the fear rising within me as I attempt to pull myself upward through the water, but Chief's words echo over and over again in my mind: "The moment a swimmer realizes they are drowning, their first instinct is to panic. They flail, they twist, they do anything to try to get to the surface. The panic dulls their logic, and even the best swimmers may find breaking out of the water to be an impossible task in that state."
I won't panic, I won't panic, I won't panic...
As oxygen levels deplete, motor control diminish. My arms and legs start to go numb, and the corners of my vision are dimming. If I don't reach the surface soon, I won't have enough strength left to make it.
Our pool has an odd structure. There's the lanes, eight in a row that are used for swim meets, or for preteens playing Shark during regular business days. The high dive is situated at the far side of the lanes, where the water is twelve feet deep. Well, the sign says "11.8ft" but everyone calls it the twelve-foot.
I've never watched someone drown. A few times, situations arose that required me to jump into the water, but only one of them potentially could've been fatal, and it turned out alright.
The incident occurred at an after-hours birthday party. The children, all with ages between five and ten, gathered underneath the buckets in the kiddie area. Because none of the partygoers planned to use the deep end, we weren't fully staffed. Myself and one of my coworkers, a shy boy I vaguely remembered from my days on the track team, manned the pool on our own. It was just eight kids, and all of them had parents with them. How hard could it be?
I recall catching him smile at the kids as they tried to guess which bucket would dump water next, scrambling to and fro like frantic squirrels in the middle of the road. I couldn't help but smile, too.
It wasn't long before they were begging us to join them. I knew at least one of us should've kept watch from afar, but the kids were so insistent, and there were only eight of them. Besides, at least one parent had an eye on them at all times, right?
My coworker and I glanced at each other, then shrugged.
What could it hurt?
The first few minutes were fine. After a time, I felt a nagging suspense. Just to be sure, I stepped back to count the kids.
One, a little girl with pigtails and freckles. Two, a little boy with a gap between his teeth. Three, a redhead with the largest brown eyes I'd ever seen. Four, the quiet girl on the edge of the group having more fun watching the rest of them play than she'd have among them. Five, the girl wearing a bright pink two-piece. Six, the boy who hadn't stopped laughing once the entire time. Seven, the boy with dimples and a childish southern accent. Eight... eight... I scanned the crowd.
Pigtails, gaptooth, redhead, loner, bright pink, laughing, dimples... dimples, bright pink, redhead, pigtails, gaptooth, laughing, loner... where was the eighth? I tried to remember what they looked like. Was it a boy or a girl? There were eight children, right? I climbed out of the pool and looked among the adults, wondering if they'd gone to their parents. No children there, were they in the bathroom? No, only the family bathrooms were open during parties, and I could see boths doors hanging wide open. Sometimes kids don't close the door... I knew I needed to check the twelve-foot.
I nearly ran, but I decided not to look overly afraid, for the parents' sakes. If the kid's okay, then they'll never have to know I lost track of a kid.
I can't believe I worried about that, when a kid could've been in danger.
That kid had jumped into the twelve-foot and was sinking. Chief said once that people don't typically scream and yell while drowning, like they do in the movies. Panicked gasping doesn't bring in enough air.
I dove in and dragged him out. He was sputtering and scared out of his wits, but otherwise unharmed.
I'm fucking terrified. This isn't the pool. There's no lifeguard to pull me up.
This was supposed to be a fun graduation trip, a chance to go out by myself for a short time and have fun before buckling down for the next four years in college. We weren't supposed to crash.
I wasn't supposed to die.
I can't keep swimming, but I have to, I have to, I have to...
It would be so much easier to give up. Just... relax. My lungs feel like they're going to burst. I know the moment I give in and try to breathe, I'll die. Water will flood my lungs and they'll burst for real. Ironic how trying to avoid that very thing is going to be what causes it. I don't think I can resist much longer.
Who's going to attend my funeral? Will they be able to find my body and have it there?
Damn that's morbid. Dammit, there's gotta be some way out of this. I reach toward the surface, one final stretch— my fingers break into the open air. I can feel it. I'm so close, so close to freedom. I kick my legs, but it's too slow. There's no power behind the movement. I can feel myself sinking, slowly sinking away from light and life and that beautiful, beautiful air...
No! No, no, no, no no! It's not fair! It's not.. it's not fucking... fair...
Fading. Where am I? I'm falling, slowly falling... my lungs hurt... I should breathe.
A gasp. Liquid rushing into me. Then, nothing.
