xyz's short stories and long sentences

August 22, 2019 Flash Fiction

The swimming pool had no edges.

It just flowed on and on, threateningly, into nothing, reminding us that air is also a fluid, one which resurrected water particles camouflage in after the sun shoots them with her deathly un-cupid-like arrows. I never attempted to go near the edge

of the pool, and flinched when the wind sprinkled of the water droplets on my face. But still, I had to skirt by it every week day—it was the only route to my school. Near route, I correct. But no hatred or disgust could ever surpass the lethargy of the first-world society. So every day I watch the water rush itself into me, and disappear at the very edge

of the pool. I watch the golden fringes and creases of its invisible silk gown stretch and conquer, expand, drown itself in me, surround me, make me swell, burst, watery, noodle-ly. I watch the children swim in it, and the water swirl next to them obligingly, as they eventually move along with the water's course ever more obligingly to the edge

of the pool—and out—as the water lengthened their circles, wetted their blankets, and dripped on their slippers. They head out, as an unconscious messenger of this fluid, as oblivious carriers of the plague, as ignorant people unaware of the danger; they always inarguably come back for more after tasting the Cool and the Intangible. To them, this is just like the pool on Marina Bay Sands. Minus the money and the fluff and the boundless swimmers like boiling dumplings in an overflowing pot. But what I know is that, you couldn't see the water flowing out of the edges

from the three high towers. And that's why it's designed so high. So that when we come out, we won't feel startled of the ever flowing ripples, drooping down a thousand feet—a waterfall overwhelming a country and its creatures within. It just hovers in midair, threatening to throw-up its golden-fringed richness at any second, empty its eye of brimming water with just a blink of an eyelid and litter the nearby skyscrapers with small mosaic squares. There was an arrogance in height, a richness in grace and it always loomed over us, as we bustled about the city and country, working to a point where we could stand stable, humble, yet arrogant and rich in our own silent way—in Marina Bay Sands' way. Yet as the rich summer heat dived into the sweet pool above the three towers, and the water came slithering its way down the three pillars in the form of air, our goals melted into dreams, and dreams into forgotten memories; we toil on in our own disillusionment, working for something that another future holds—one that isn't ours.

The pool had no edges. Boundless. Dream-holding. Yet never dream-granting.