Bent (Camp NanoWrimo)

Ten

I was a small kid. I blame my small mother who has the frame of a starving scarecrow. But when I was 10 years old, I was just 60 pounds. The average 10 year old is around 75 pounds. This significant lack of weight did not come to my advantage during one summer I spent mainly in the ocean. It was right after fourth grade ended that my parents decided that we'd all go to Bali to visit the beaches. Honestly, I had always thought people in America went to Hawaii if they wanted to see the beach. But no, they decided to go to a small island. In Indonesia. In Asia. Which is quite a long flight for a child.

It took three flights. We went from California, to Hong Kong, to Jakarta, to Bali. And then we were in paradise. My dad was smart with his selection of hotel. It was right on a beach, Bali Garden Beach Resort. That resort was a dream. Me and my younger brother ran all over the campus. We had access to the pools (even though the beach was only a bit of a walk away) and nice restaurants. Especially since I was a kid, the place seemed incredibly vast.

We had been there two full days when my dad told us we were finally going to check out the beach. Kuta Beach is one of those beaches that there are alway a ton of people and sellers. Yeah in Indonesia, a TON of people sell random trinkets. And they try very hard to sell their products. But that's besides the point. Because there were always a ton of people, there were no lifeguards. That may seem likes backwards reasoning, but they thought that people could look out for one another.
We got there around 5 in the afternoon. The sun set pretty early during the summer, but at the time it was still in the sky. My mom sprayed me and my brother with sunscreen over and over. With our little flip flops on, we both waddled down into the shallow area, where the water was just skimming over the sand. We played there for a bit. There were small shells in the sand that were so cool. They burrowed themselves into the wet sand and hid from the stomping children such as my brother and I. After a few minutes, we waded into the water. My mom and dad were 30 feet back, lounging on chairs under umbrellas. They trusted us. I mean, they made us go to Red Buoy Swim School for six years. SIX. So they knew we'd swim safely.

We were in the water for maybe 15 minutes when we decided to go deeper in. We floated towards the shore at every new wave that washed in. I was giggling next to my brother, facing our parents, when a wave swept over us. I was pushed off my feet and up into the water. It felt like hours of tumultuous movement. I had no idea which way was up and I was left flailing my limbs to try to stabilize myself. I was scared; I was drowning. But eventually, my feet touched sand and I stood. I felt pathetic as I stared at the water. My "drowning" scare was just me dumbly flapping about in the water.

I looked up to see my brother laughing at me from the shore. His hair was dripping, so I knew he had been thrown under, too.

"How did you get out of the water so quickly?" I asked him.

"I just swam over here!" he smiled.

My brother was shorter than me. He was only 8 so it made sense. But he was larger than me, body mass wise. I was sure he weighed more than me as well. I decided that somehow his body type was the reason he could surface faster. So I groaned and walked up to meet my brother.

Now, this was many years ago. Even today, my brother is bigger and much taller than me (well, everyone is taller than me because of my lack of legs). But for a few years, I thought going under water for less than a minute was the closest I'd get to death until it was actually time. Damn, I loved being innocent.