Splashing

“Well, this doesn’t seem like work,” she thought at the first day of her steel and concrete job.   The shiny surfaces lured her in like a magpie.  

The polished impossibly long wood tables that seemed almost plastic.

She spent the first meeting as an official employee tracing the grain in front of her, trying to decide if the table once was a tree.  All the tiny details might have been created by an artisan, but no, they can design these things on computers now.  

She felt herself constantly performing.  Her own sense of self was gone.  Every genuine emotion occurred in the third person.  She knew she was constantly being spied on, or evaluated.  Her own worth was based on her output.  Or so she thought.

Her manager had a meeting with her, once every two weeks.  Over the phone.  He was eager to keep it under 15 minutes.  She knew that he had to block out 30 minutes for it (nothing in the company happened under 30, the scheduling system allowed those blocks as the minimum.  He was using the rest of the time to write his notes on how wonderful he was and how recalcitrant she was.

He was her brother.

They shared the secret.

The reason you weren’t supposed to have sex with your brother . . .

==

The police officer was responding to a call.  A swimmer in the reservoir.  Probably a teenager.  Honestly, he couldn’t blame them.  The humidity was overwhelming, you got physically angry whenever you had to leave any kind of air conditioned space.  The station to the car.  The car to the donut shop.  Your ice coffee didn’t stay cold long enough, or maybe there was just never enough to drink to get you cooled off.  

If he were really lucky, he’d find her skinny dipping.  It would argue for a temporary loss of sanity.  And ideally, he’d get a look.  Or pretend not to, preserving his gentlemanly status, flirting safely as a married man, but with enough leeway.  To look.  He’d offer his jacket and in a staged bit of awkwardness, learned from Ralph Kramden, he’d get a full glimpse at exactly the wrong/right moment.

He found her repeatedly,

once in shock (??)

She was shivering, the water couldn’t be more than 60 degrees.  He knew enough about hypothermia to know that a body shouldn’t be in the water for a full 2 hours in that.  (He didn’t know that she did it on a regular basis.  And she was fine, moving around inside the water.  Her teeth were chattering because he had torn her from her beloved water.  The air was the enemy.  The air, and now her wet bathing suit.  As soon as they got inside, she’d gladly give him an eyeful.  But he delayed, keeping her in the bone chill of the backseat, with just a blanket from his trunk.  The rescue was worse than the cold.

She wanted to swim through the pastures, the farmland just beyond the forests that lined the shores.  In the 1800’s, in Henry’s lifetime, the trees had mostly been felled for firewood.  Or to clear for farmland.  The Heather On The Hill.

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PLOT:

The cop finds her on a regular basis, every time her story gets a little weaker.

You try not to think about it, but when you do, all you remember is breathing in the water.  You were used to it, but never in a way that took away the awful feeling that reminded you of being a person, not a fish.  

You try not to think about the splashing.  The sharp pain and the blood in your mouth.  When you remember it, the sense of shock or surprise seems almost out of place.

The moment you felt his fist on the back of your neck, you knew it had only been a matter of time.  

You were still surprised.

Sure, there had been a fight before you left shore.  And all the week previous, the tension was in every word he said.

You swung back and forth from your position of being the Zen Christian to the evil bitch you felt you really were.  The one who wanted to scream at him.  The one who wouldn’t take him back anymore.  The one to hit him first.

But his smile got you every time.

(And you had no idea, when you got to the far shore, if he was still there, ready to come out to get you)

He pulled his disappearing act on you, again. And then he came back smiling, his big bipolar bear smile.  Too enthusiastic about everything.  

The week before, he didn’t even look you in the eye.

When he asked you to go for a swim, you thought it was too easy.  

There were a few times in his life where you couldn’t trust him.  And now it seemed to be one of those times.  You wanted to say no.  All the bits of your body that rely on your survival, the schoolmarm, the college friend who is always right, the nun, they all agreed that you shouldn’t go.  That even at your most forgiving, you needed to stay away from him, not be in the same room, never turn your back.

The sharp pain at the top of your spine was something you were waiting for.

And were almost relieved when it arrived.

Now, you thought, now, I can sink.

But somehow, you dove into it.  Had no idea if it was a knife, if you were bleeding, attracting him like a shark.

You couldn’t outswim him.  But you knew, you knew he was afraid of diving.  Diving under, so silent.  You were quick and could hold your breath, even after you took in some water and wanted to cough, wanted air.  you swam past his feet.  He was big and strong on the shore, in your bedroom, but on the surface, he was slow and awkward.  

You dove and he dove, but not deep like you.  He wouldn’t even open his eyes, even as kids, he wouldn’t open his eyes underwater.

You could do flips, front and back.  He complained of the feeling of losing your orientation, not knowing up from down.  And he stopped practicing those after he turned 10 and learned he could beat up the younger kids, the way the older kids had once beat him up.  You stayed out of his business after that, younger and still wanting to impress him, but afraid of him too.

There was splashing.  He once got you, dunking you, thinking it was fun.  You could still hear his laughter.  Him getting too excited about something.  And not knowing when to stop.  Not knowing that he SHOULD stop.

You try not to think about the splashing.

When he had you, breathing water.  When he was pushing you down, again.  Hurt.  And he wouldn’t stop, you knew, until he got tired.  That was all.  He needed to have his “fit”  and then it would pass.

You tried not to think of flowers, how guilty he’d feel for weeks.  And even how sweet he’d be.

And so you dove deep.  

You think he followed you, in such a rage that he forgot how much he hated it underwater.

The light from the sun came down as beautifully as ever, like church.

You were quicker than him underwater.  

You knew that he would forget that he couldn’t breathe water.

All that splashing.  

You got away from him.  From him trying to hold you down.  And you tried to keep him under.  

All that splashing.

You just knew you were alone on the shore, the far side.  

But you weren’t sure where he would emerge.  And if that was a knife in his hand.  

And weeks later, the longer he is gone, the more you are certain he is gone.  If not gone from the water, if not gone from your life, then maybe he escaped.  He got into a car, a summer hitchhiker, his trunks still wet.  Undead, he found a way to move on.  And he’ll come back. Come back into your life, someday.

And you’ll think, now, it’s now.  The moment I was waiting for.

But the more days pass, the more he is gone.  As if the crucial seconds were stretched out, as if this time, these days, were just him holding his breath underwater.

He was terrible at holding his breath.

But he was great at scaring her.  And jumping out at her from anywhere else.  A heart attack.

Every pond was an opportunity for him.  A message, the only way she knew.  Come, kill me now.  I’m sorry I didn’t let you finish.

She felt his eyes on her.  She talked to him, not out loud.  But silently, in a way you do when you have a tender relationship with your killer.  The man you loved more than yourself.  He was watching, even if he was dead.  And if he was dead, she needed to keep Swimming. Because otherwise, she’d never go back.

You mustn’t think about the splashing.  Or that shadow, which may or may not have been him, sinking  deeper into the water.  Bleeding from where you had gotten a better angle on him.  And unconscious, sinking, his worst nightmare.

==

There was an outlet on the river.  A storm, the river overflowed in April and this storm made the waters run quicker.

A body was found in a storm drain, bloated and unrecognizeable.  It was something she overheard on the radio.  And then the news.  Something in the background.  Not even something to be aware of.  Maybe it was him, maybe not.  

She hadn’t called.

Hadn’t reported.  And if nobody is looking for you, you are not missing.  Especially if you are not missed.  He liked being anonymous, hiding.  HIs own cave.  Living off the grid.  

The bear you loved.

You should visit his cave.  Then you’d know.

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