The Essence of Water

OLD VERSION Chapter 1

I'm drowning. 

Properly drowning too, I feel my heart stop, feel my consciousness slip and the world fade away. I'm dead. But if I come back, if I die here and wake up in a minute, then that means to die I don't have to be dead. If I come back to life then this period when my heart is stopped, what is this? A blip on the radar? Faulty wiring? No... I feel... it's something more than that... 

I think... I think in this moment, all of me woke up. I've found something hidden here in this darkness, something that I found when there was nothing else to see or hear. I reach out for it.  

I drowned.  

I'm dead.  

But I'm not dead.  

I wake up. I take a breath.  

I realize I am still underwater.  

It takes me a long time to convince myself that I'm not dead, that I haven't lingered as a ghost like some forgotten soul. It takes me a long time because I still can't feel my heart beating. Even though I'm breathing water in and out of my lungs, my heart is still. I'm not even sure breathing is the correct term. Can someone breathe water? What is it called when a fish uses its gills? Filtering? God, I'm a water filter. Great, I'll just add that to my list of strange things.  

My butt hits the ocean floor. The rocks and dirt scratch against my legs and feet. I instantly grab fistfuls of it and squeeze tightly, anchoring myself. I keep gulping air in large steady breathes. I'm afraid that if I stop, or change the rhythm my body will remember that I'm not actually a fish or a water filter, that I'm a Human with two lungs that require air. I'm afraid that if I stop, I'll actually die, though I'm still not sure I'm alive. But this is better than being dead, I think. What happens if I'm actually a ghost? I keep breathing.  

No Adie, you aren't a ghost.  

Yea? How do you know? 

Because that means Rag was responsible for your death. That means you'd have to haunt him, and there is no way in hell you're going to haunt Rag.  

And why not?  

Can you see yourself haunting Rag while he's wearing boxers? 

Oh my God that's disgusting!  

Exactly.  

The image my brain produces of Rag in boxers makes me cringe. And naturally, my rhythm is thrown off. And I don't die. So I start breathing slower, less dramatically. When this doesn't change anything I gain the courage to open my hands and push off from the ocean floor. I lift off the ground and plop back down. Again, I'm still alive.  

I feel around since it's too dark to see. My hand trails over tendrils of seaweed but at least my fingers don't get chewed off by some creature. I get my feet under me and push off. My fingers slice through the water and my feet propel me forward. Slowly, the water around me begins to lighten and I start to make out the greenish hue of the ocean. I keep looking up, towards the light where I know the surface to be. What happens when I reach it? Will this spell be broken? Will I emerge as a fish, a mermaid? 

I can see the surface now and the churning, bubbling water around me. I feel the stronger currents here tugging at my feet and fanning my hair. I almost reach the surface, but then the current tugs harder until it feels like a hand has wrapped around my ankles. I try fighting it at first, but when I realize I'm getting no further I stop. There is no panic. There is no urgency. I feel that maybe it's unnatural. That I should be fighting to get to the surface, to the air. But the current tugging at my ankles, it's not aggressive. It's...persuasive. And I figure, if I'm not fighting for air, why should I go? So I point my body downward again, and this time, I go with the current. It feeds off my willingness; it pushes me faster, further. I press my arms to my sides and relish how natural my body feels in this state. How easily it slices through the water. I pass schools of fish that skirt away it sharp jerky movements. Their scales glimmer for a moment then they disappear. The current pushes me onward.  

I lick my lips, and the taste of salt surprises me. I know it shouldn't but it does. I've been breathing salt water, but yet, I haven't tasted before. But now, it's all I seem to be able to notice. Every time I breathe I feel it in the back of my nose and down my throat. I try to stop but the current keeps pushing me, I start to struggle and current pushes harder. I panic but the more I do the faster the water pushes me. My knees scrap against smooth rock and suddenly I'm suspended in water that is a few feet taller than me. I've made it to the shore.  

There is no current. 

And though I was struggling a moment before, I'm afraid again. What happens when I get out of the water? I swim for the shore, and every stroke I take makes the water lower until I'm pushing along the bottom with just my hands. I know I can't hold it off any longer. I put my knees against the rocks and I push my body out. I take a breath.  

I choke.  

I gag and cough. I breathe again and the cycle keeps repeating. I'm choking on air. I'm telling my body to stop breathing, but my lungs keep sucking it in. Then, I'm puking up water. It comes out through my nose and mouth and soon there is nothing left but the bitter taste of salt on my tongue and air in my lungs. The water may not have killed me, but it sure as hell hurt. I realize the significance of that thought. 

I'm alive. 

I hear my heart pounding. Maybe it was always pounding and I just couldn't recognize it.  

But even though I take comfort in the fact that I am not a ghost, that I'm not required to haunt Rag. My brain refuses to take the image of his boxers away.