Deep Sea

Chapter 2 - Three diving friends

- Call me an idiot! I could feel there was something in the water... telling me I had to be careful. Ever since I dived from the dinghy and heard first a soft whistle in my ears and then the slow sound of breathing... I told myself there was a danger lurking. If a diver lets himself be overwhelmed by fear, it's the end, so I didn't listen to my feelings and actually repeated to myself: do you want to overcome these damned phobias of yours, yes or no? Face them! I reached Ettore who was checking the anchoring of the dinghy. If I've learned anything good about spearfishing and diving, I owe it to you. You jerked the anchor and turned to give me the ok with a thumb up. So I turned around too and saw Riccardo, he was practically behind me. Memories? I signaled you to move forward to follow Ettore. I did it to wait for you to move away because I wanted to be alone for a while. -

On a cool and humid night, on the patio of the house surrounded by greenery, Furio drained the last sip of grappa.

- I entered that part of the coast that rises towards the surface, creating inlets between the rocks, wide enough to be able to pass through. I turned on the torch because at ten meters deep and in the midst of narrow passages the light from the surface barely reaches. In doing so I noticed a shadow in the distance and with two vigorous kicks I started chasing it. As I passed, a cloud of swarms blocked my vision for a few seconds. With the beam of light that colored the filaments of algae and plankton moved by the escape yellow, I glimpsed a large black shape at the bottom of the inlet where I had entered. I stopped. I was strongly tempted to walk away but I wondered if that shouldn't be the test of my courage. After all, everything up until then had always been under my control. I had cylinders, a rifle over my shoulder, a torch in my hand. I clamped the mouthpiece between my teeth and pushed myself into the dark shadow. The enormous mass bobbed as if cradled by the current and when I arrived near the exit of the tunnel, a stone's throw from it, I froze. Incredulous. In front of me there was a remarkable specimen of blue shark. More than two meters long. Something never seen before! I was still, I was barely breathing, I was almost panting, and the glass on my mask started to fog up. The ray of light had attracted the fish towards me and it was looking at me with small, shining eyes. Only then did I realize that we were both trapped, I stuck in the tunnel, he was almost imprisoned between six meters high rocks that formed a sort of well. I don't know what went through my head, maybe it was in self-defense: either him or me, I thought, without considering the fact that a blue shark doesn't attack a man. What the fuck! Is it or is it not a shark? And if it is not in theory, it is very similar in practice, I assure you! I cocked my speargun and fired the harpoon. The arrow drew a trail of bubbles and grazed the fish's belly. A gush of blood blackened the water more than it was already dark. I remember everything up to that moment as if I had recorded a film in slow motion. Then things got worse. I felt a violent blow slamming me against the rock. The mask almost shattered my nose and cheekbone. I lost my torch and rifle, and in the impact a violent pain paralyzed my left arm for a few minutes. A sharp rock spur tore my wetsuit and injured my shoulder. We were even, but the beast didn't give up, I saw its mass coming towards me a second time. I wanted to shout sorry, sorry, sorry, and I tightened my mouthpiece in a bite that almost broke it, I moved with a jerk, a thrust of my kidneys, a kick so strong that it threw me several meters away. The tanks hit another boulder and the oxygen tube was punctured. A column of bubbles rose upwards. I fell into a panic. I was breathing water, it entered my nostrils and invaded my body, I felt like I was dying. Nothing in me worked anymore. Then Ettore grabbed me from behind. We did practically no decompression, we had only descended about fifteen metres. We had no further news of the beast. My precious Master Tell 106 is still there on the bottom. -

A long silence fell, crickets chirped nearby and every now and then a few mosquitoes died with a quick shock in the light trap hanging from the ceiling beams.