Writing Snapshots

drowning

I am drowning.

I don't know what it is that gives it away.

The burning of my lungs? The panic of the voice in my head?

Live. It chants. Fight.

I can feel the water pulling at me, trying to drag me to the bottom. Or perhaps it isn't the water but the monsters that lurk there.

Come. Come to me.

I can almost hear the voices chanting for me to join them. Perhaps they are mermaids but not like the ones that had pretty tails and beautiful features.

No, like the one with razor sharp teeth and claws. Claws to tear at my flesh. Maybe that's why they are calling out to me, to pick me apart until I am only a sack of bones.

I can feel my legs trying to swim up, my arms flailing around. Air, my lungs cry, but I don't feel it burning anymore. Slowly, everything is becoming numb. It feels like I am watching myself drown with another pair of eyes, still in my body, but not there.

I am dying.

I don't know how to swim.

I will die. I know that now.

My body fights on.

Stop, I want to scream. It's over.

My arms still struggle to push me up, but the movements are not as fast as before. They have slowed as if the nerves just stopped working. Stilling. My legs still thrash beneath me, but I can feel myself sinking nonetheless.

Stop. I tell my legs. The fight is over.

I let the current drag me down. And slowly, my legs still.

I didn't realize how peaceful drowning is once you got past the pain. Once the survival instinct stops kicking in.

I can feel the salty water enter my lungs, filling, filling, filling.

My ears are blocked. I can't hear anything. Everything is so peaceful.

The water stretches above me. I can see the sun through it. A little ball of light. So far away. Light years away. But if I can stretch my fingertips now, I can touch it as it dances in the water.

I can touch it.

I can. I know I can.

But my hands don't work. My eyes start to close.

I must touch it!

Everything is so peaceful.

And I died without touching the sun.

But in death, I found peace with that.