Into The Swim 522 words

[josiehenley]

I lower myself into the water gratefully, my shoulders aching after a hard day at the keyboard. A shiver briefly runs through my body as I get accustomed to the temperature. I float for a moment, savouring the anticipation. At last, I fit my hands together as if in prayer and dive forwards into the swim. I still can’t get used to not pushing off from the edge, but they say this will come.

I don’t know whether I want to get used to it.


My face in the cool pool water; my arms reaching ever forwards; blue surrounds me; drumming on my ears and nothing in my way. This is why I like to swim. I watch my strong, straight arms pummelling the water. The hairs on my forearms catch points of air. Silver bubbles bursting around my biceps, I steamroll through the water. My beautiful body, at least from the waist up, travels at speed. I relish the feeling.


At the deep end, I turn around and begin again. Back stroke for two lengths. I am a boat, my arms the oars: I win the Oxford-Cambridge race. I turn again and slip into breast stroke. Face forward, don’t look back. Only focus on what is to come. Watching my arms ahead of me.


Blue, the colour of my dreams. Follow the black stripe beneath me. Count the lengths. Fourteen; sixteen; eighteen; twenty; and on and on.

Voices muffled underwater, I only hear my own breaths. I stop when I think I hear my name. “Are you ready to come out yet?” she asks, manoeuvring the wheelchair to the side of the pool.


I hold up my fingers to indicate two more lengths. She nods.


Front crawl, how ironic the name of this stroke! In the water I am suspended and move lithely as a mermaid. On land I am encumbered and can only crawl or be pushed. Water gives me my legs back.


After the accident, it took so long to lift me out of that hole. I remembered with pain my dancing days, my running, jumping for joy days, my life on legs. Refusing the happy pills, I wallowed in anguished lie-ins until the pressure sores came.


Nothing to get up for. Feeling a bit legless. You want to lose weight? Try an amputation! Bitter jokes, I know. What is the point of it all? I should have died rather than this. No more football; no karate; no motorbike. Then I remembered how I loved to swim. I asked to go to the pool.


Slowly at first, I got that sinking feeling. Refusing the floats, at last I had something to fight for. I swim, and I swim and I swim.


This is my lifeblood. I sit at my desk writing, my rippling biceps belying the wasted body beneath the desk. Folk might see me there as they pass and think that I’m a bodybuilder. Perhaps that’s what I am. If I could build some new legs for myself then I would.

Until then, I’ll just keep looking forward. Watching my powerful arms on the downstroke. Pushing further and further into the swim.

[jrudder]

Nice piece. One problem I saw:

Silver bubbles bursting around my biceps, I steamroller through the water.

That should be "I steamroll." Probably just a typo, though, so nothing big. Another one I saw:

Bitter jokes, look how much weight I’ve lost; feeling a bit legless.

That's just a bit awkward. Are you saying that "look at how much weight I've lost" is a bitter joke? Also, I don't see how "feeling a bit legless" is connected to the rest of the sentence. IMO it should be split off and lengthened into its own sentence, as I can't really see the link between it and the rest.

Aside from those, I enjoyed reading this. I liked how you slowly hinted at the fact that the speaker might be paralyzed or crippled until you finally get to the point where you tell us he/she (not really clear, but I figured it wasn't supposed to be) was in "the accident." That was well-done, so good work.

[josiehenley]

Thanks for feedback. Bitter jokes - this was supposed to be an amputee, hence losing weight and legless, but obviously not clear enough from what you say! Maybe I'll make it less ambiguous and as you say lengthen the sentence out. Hmm, thinking about an edit now...

[jrudder]

Ah, ok, the edit is much clearer. The amputee angle hadn't even come to my mind; I thought "feeling legless" meant that he knew he had his legs but he couldn't feel them or something. Alright, I've got it now.

[Mr Baatard]

I liked it! That was some pretty powerful imagery. I had issues with your grammar, particularly your sentence structure. I know what you were trying to do, however, so it worked out well. Nice work!

[Geoffrey Robson]

I liked it. I was looking for a towel after I read it. I liked the determinaion she shows. Life goes on wheather its one step or stroke at a time.

[ronoxQ]

Most of the stuff I had to say had to be said. Nice story. The one thing I have to offer is this:

Front crawl, how ironic the name of this stroke!

Would read better as "Front crawl - what an ironic name!" Or some variation. The original one is a little awkward-sounding.

[aarankine]

Wondeful writing! I really liked your descriptions. This was my favorite:

"The hairs on my forearms catch points of air. "

This is wonderful too: "My face in the cool pool water; my arms reaching ever forwards; blue surrounds me; drumming on my ears and nothing in my way."

--except I'm not sure about all those semicolons. I realize you're using them poetically rather than according to the "rules" of punctuation (which also might differ between the UK and the US) but still, I think there' s too many of them, calling attention to themselves rather than the words they are supposed to serve. One solution would be:

My face in the cool pool water; my arms reaching ever forwards.... Blue surrounds me, drumming on my ears, and nothing in my way.

Or something like that. There would be many possible ways, depending on what you want to emphasize.

I also found this one a bit "gimmicky": "My beautiful body, at least from the waist up, travels at speed."

At that point

1. I knew what was coming, in other words, you gave it away right there. Maybe that was your intention. :-)

2. I was cynically thinking: Does the body from the waist down travel slowly?

In other words, the way you insert it , "at least form the waist down" modifies the whole sentence, not just the "my beautiful body" part. If you want to avoid that, you could break it up. "My body is beautiful--at least from the waist up--and it travels at speed. That does sound a bit drab, so you could perhaps make it two sentences, putting in a few more things about powerfully slicing the water and all that. :-)

Anyway, just my suggestions. Congratulations, this is a great piece!

[Kriss Nichol]

I enjoyed reading your story and the descriptions of the water. However,I feel you may have missed an opportunity by not linking the water, it's feel, temperature etc to the protagonist's emotional state. I also felt the ending and the info about the accident needs a lighter touch. Krissxxx

[josiehenley]

Thanks everyone for fantastic feedback. I've submitted this piece for a competition now, and posted something new.