Water Motif

A foot in the pond is fair practice when hiding away from friends. The water acts as a strong conduit, connecting the body to all its peers without upsetting the mind any further. A soft, paddling kick going up and down and up and down again does much the same. While they swim out there, stripped and comfortable, the foot swims too. Something in the brain connects that repetitive motion to the sound of their splashing and laughter, and it makes the chest laugh too. Like substituting meals with a chocolate bar up against the nose and shaved ice between the teeth.

…

He swept his other leg off the ledge and into the water. It was bathtub warm and chlorinated to the point of itchiness. His friends were about fifteen feet out now. He could hear them singing but it was muddled in his ears, like they were already five feet deep. 

Kieran’s voice pierced the noise: “Kim, you seriously not coming in?”

Little torches lit by the edge of the pool. A beach-y track began to play. Kim shook his head from side to side.

Kieran waved a hand dismissively and turned back to face their friends, launching off the floor of the pool with a couple of soft kicks.

Kim’s legs kicked too. Little droplets of white water sprayed out ahead of him with only slight backsplash dotting his own shirt and shorts. The droplets made him duck his gaze a little, he didn’t like the way he looked in a wet shirt, a wet short, or a wet anything. 

A fellow walked past him with a spring in his step and a fruity drink in his hand, heading straight out the archway separating this pool from the great big beach behind it. He wished he had the foresight to grab a drink before he planted himself like this, but he convinced himself this was the time he was finally going to swim with them. A drink wouldn’t have helped anyway, he figured. Liquor made him feel too much and he could never finish a beer.

His friends—Kieran’s friends talked about things he didn’t really understand, sex at the forefront of every shared word. They spoke of haughty exchanges and creepy visitors during the night. One of them told an especially elaborate story. 

When she was young, much younger than she is now, she spent nearly every minute with this friend of hers. This friend grew into her, They attended her dinners each afternoon and slept beside her each night. Their roots became inextricable to the point of starvation; the soil beneath them did not have enough nutrients to sustain their growth. So before she stopped speaking to them for the rest of her life, she slept with them. For hours and hours they slipped into one another until it all came down. She remembered how it felt to tear at their back with her nails more than the orgasms that paired with her desperate grasping and groping.

Reacting to expressions Kim could not see, she laughed to herself and said she was just fucking with everyone. That was a short story she read somewhere online. Maybe Reddit? 

…

Liquid travels through the body unceasing. Blood courses with loud thumps, spinal fluid drains from the neck with a quiet hiss, and bile sits unattended, sloshing up and down in an empty stomach. Equilibrium is set, temperatures are managed, and bacteria is cultivated or destroyed.

…

Their promiscuous conversation began to feel like his own. He took in their words with a nod and a smile as if they could see him. He paddled his legs as they swam further out into the pear shaped pool. With them, he imagined, went the smell of schnapps and cigarettes. Their little laughs must be decorated with a bottle passed between. Further and further away they went.

To Kim’s right, the facilities began to close. A sign was taken down, a lonesome drunk was waved through the gate and toward the beach, and someone spilled the rest of their drink with their elbow. They said a quiet apology, and followed the drunk out the gate. The bartender draped their towel over the stain and walked off. His eyes followed her all the way to the faux-thatch restroom door she stepped into. 

In the bartender’s absence, the already faint music began to clip in and out. Bursts of quiet exploded outward like the loud clicks of an eardrum in an airplane cabin. The sound of their laughter clipped with it. He looked back to the group and was met by fifteen shadows stood perfectly still, like black chess pieces. Loud bursts of laughter escaped their mouths as Margaritaville resumed. Their white teeth shone through their darkened forms—stars in the night sky. 

The tiki torches and their joining flames disappeared, leaving only the white-blue lights at the sides of the pool walls. The bartender came out of the bathroom and without so much as a glance back, headed toward the gate. The music stopped. The laughter was silenced. And the sound of fifteen voices conjoined into into a wet, choking inhale. A sound pulled past the vocal chords directly from the diaphragm.

A large geyser of water exploded up from the circle of people. Kim averted his eyes. Dots of water sprayed all over his body, showering him in little petals of discomfort. His breathing grew rapid. He could no longer make out the outlines of the bungalow. He could not see the kitschy thatch walls, the culturally insensitive banners and totems, the large torches, or even the bar where that drink was spilled. His neck snapped back to the pool. The shadows laid flat, face down in the clear blue water.

The light should’ve caught their features, at the very least made a contour of their shapes, but it couldn’t. There was nothing for it to catch. Not until they started moving. Twisting, writhing, shaking. All around them waves burst out, white and blue ripples responding to their unified seizures. He scanned the pool around them for a lifeguard and found the tower empty. And then they started singing.

Ringing out from their rippling waves, a haunting refrain. Long notes summoned from nothing; alone they would sound out of key, but together they made a song, a song that sounded like worship. It was then that he noticed a pattern in their spasms. 

They were not seizing, they were dancing. Kim looked to these shadows in horror, words barely forming on his lips. They spasmed in response, all face-down in the water and dancing with their reflections at the bottom of the pool. Kim thought about entering the water but he was stopped by something greater than himself; his body froze. The refrain was sung into deaf ears as his eardrums burst. Hot blood streaked down the sides of his face, framing his jawline and dripping down his chin. The blood was soon joined by saliva and snot, tears and aqueous humor. From the tips of his toes the veins began to evacuate. His feet softly peddled in the pool of chlorinating blood. Dots of bodily fluids covered his shirt. The shadows danced upside down and all around him. He sat still, waiting for his cue.