Prompt: Describe nearly drowning.
8/17/15
[fiction] painting by Paul Lee
Before you witness drowning, you imagine chaos, thrashing, gurgling screams. In fact, all available air goes to your blood and you're unable to make noise. Each millisecond above water is an inhale, not a sound.
Once I found a brand new sparrow, crippled in the water of our pool. His escaping life force was mute and bulging, a terrible Calm tightening its clutches more fiercely than any panic. I scooped him out and put him on a lawn chair to dry out.
I walked away without waiting to see if he'd recover, because all I could feel in that moment was my own heart going under the waves in a sea of choked back tears.
8/17/15
[fiction] painting by Paul Lee
Before you witness drowning, you imagine chaos, thrashing, gurgling screams. In fact, all available air goes to your blood and you're unable to make noise. Each millisecond above water is an inhale, not a sound.
Once I found a brand new sparrow, crippled in the water of our pool. His escaping life force was mute and bulging, a terrible Calm tightening its clutches more fiercely than any panic. I scooped him out and put him on a lawn chair to dry out.
I walked away without waiting to see if he'd recover, because all I could feel in that moment was my own heart going under the waves in a sea of choked back tears.
No comments:
Post a Comment