SWIM Book 1 (Complete three-hundred pages)

*Day 11.2 Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Loneliness was not my forte. Before the tsunami happened, I could be seen together with at least one person all twenty-four hours of the day. I normally fell asleep while skyping multiple friends, or while sleeping next to someone, like Jack. And on the odd occasion that I passed through an empty street without a friend, relative or lover strolling by my side, you could always bet I had a phone in my hand. The world is smaller thanks to the internet, and I never saw beauty in solitude away from my phone or computer. I have friends from Japan who cannot sleep without their laptops lying next to them, warm and purring under their cradling armpits. There was a dry crack of thunder in the black clouds once I thought of all this, and I suddenly realized the bulge of my phone, pressing between the balcony floor and my tight, left buttock. I only noticed my phone underneath me at this very instant, and so my first rising thought was-- I had to grab for it.

I grunted and the pain kicked in like a shock collar around my stomach. I lifted at my abs and I could feel my muscles cramp while my brain's circuitry coughed up chunks of madness. In my attempt, I swung up too quickly, and the teeth of the dismembered wood bit into my lower belly, but I twisted nonetheless, enforcing a wild thrust of willpower as I slid one hand under my pant pocket (the bones inside my hand shaking under the compression of the wardrobe's weight on me, and then, feeling for the slick iPhone, I pinched two fingers around the phone's edge like chopsticks on a single grain of rice, and with a cramp surging through my elbow and wrist, I slid the damn thing out from under me.

Okay. I pulled my phone to my face, and hung like a monkey over the edge of the balcony. My fingers sweat and I feared the slick device would slip right out my fingers. Teeth chattering from the cold wind, I clicked the power button and the screen illuminated in front of me. "It's on!" I said aloud. Adrenaline pumped through the bulge in my forehead. "Come on," I said, racing my finger to swipe open the lock screen. I dialed my password: J-A-C-K—and walla! The home screen zoomed into view. The tears swelled in my eyes and dropped to my forehead. "I'm saved," I told myself. "I'm going to get out of here, and everything's going to be okay. . ."

I dialed 9-1-1. And then the phone hiccupped and failed, returning me to the home screen. No, I thought, try again, I encouraged myself, my hope breaking every second. I dialed 9-1-1 again and whispered the words, please save me. Bring a helicopter, bring a boat, bring anything. Get me out of here. HELP ME, PLEASE. Please, oh god, what did I do, to deserve this...?

The call dropped and went to home screen. I cursed and screamed as loudly as I could. My stomach bled and the wardrobe sunk deeper into me but I didn't care, because the only horrifying thing in this entire world at this moment was the tiny right-hand corner of my phone where the data icon was supposed to say LTE... but instead jeered with malice... No Service, You're gonna die you spoiled little girl. You're gonna die, you're gonna die, you're gonna die, just like Jack and your mom and your sweet old daddy, too.

I screamed and cried and moaned and the wardrobe pulled my intestines into its broken drawers with the jaw of a crocodile. "HELP ME!" My voice echoed shortly over the wind and the crashing ocean. The debris below was louder than my screams, covering my noise with the sound of metal junk and cemented street lamps dragging across the cement sidewalks under ten feet of extended Pacific Ocean. "God!" I cried out, because God was the only one who could hear me, (but it seemed he wasn't even there, or he had turned a blind eye for this county, over the whole coast of California), "Help me! Why did you do this?" My words died off, and the dry thunder whipped and cackled over the sky. The clouds darkened the morning light, and faint hue of dirty brown lighting filtered the scene much like the beginning and end of the film Wizard of Oz. My life was coming to an end, wasn't it, God. Did I not live to your approval? I guess not. "Just let me fall," I said, when suddenly the balcony made a crunch and I suddenly ended my monologue to God, eyes widening and adrenaline punching again. I held onto the wardrobe with all my might, scraping my nails across the chipping wood as it slid further into me, and I slid onto half my buttocks and then onto only my painful hamstrings as the entire balcony dipped down at a forty-five. This was no rollercoaster to be on, I was going to lose it all and it was a damn funny game the universe was playing on me—the last to go, wasn't I? Make me suffer by watching my whole world drown before me and then play out my death like a religious execution, damn it just do it now!

Then I heard a sound, like a ruffling stampede-- Was it the water beneath me? I listened some more, and could hear loud sound of something like animals somewhere off in the distance, somewhere above my body, somewhere. . . behind the wardrobe. . .

It wasn't the water, no, it wasn't the crackling storm brewing up above, no, and it wasn't my stomach slowly snapping in half. . .

No—It was—It was—It was--

It was feet. . .

Five boys to be exact.

My hope rushed back into me so quickly, that in my immature happiness—something even worse happened. . . My phone that could have saved us all, regained its satellite connection, but only for a second, because. . . it slipped right through my fingers.

And landed in the blackness below, dying under the surface. . .