Sink or Swim by Aditi Agina

Sink or Swim

By Aditi Agina

The church was beautiful. It was decorated with bubble gum pink streamers and rainbow confetti. Gold balloons hung to the ceilings, shifting slightly with the tide of the wind. If it wasn’t for the attendees in black, Marcus might have assumed he had come to the wrong place. He clutched the memorial card tight in his fist and made his way to the very back of the church. The service had been over for an hour now but almost everyone had stayed. They sat silently and listened to a speaker blast various Kidzbop songs. Marcus dropped his head against the cool wood of the pew in front of him and screwed his eyes shut. He shouldn’t have come here. He should have stayed at home and let the day go by and pretended as though nothing in his life had changed.

Piercing sobs broke through his thoughts and he knew that it was the little girl's mother, @mommorgan on Facebook. It was a page that he had spent hours glued to since the accident, even though she had only posted five times. All five for her one and only, and now deceased daughter. He had half hoped for her to change the username, remove the posts, tear down her page, and bring with it the guilt that had burned through Marcus ever since the accident.

“Hey there, can I sit here?” When Marcus looked up to dismiss the gentle voice he was surprised to find an old man with dustings of blond hair and blue eyes that had just begun fading into white. It had to have been the little girl’s grandfather. He looked so similar to the pictures of the little girl plastered all over @mommorgan’s page

“Of course Sir” Marcus mumbled, trying his best to keep his words from slurring. Marcus knew that he looked like a wreck. He had not slept since the accident, nor had he changed his suit. It was stained with beer all down the front and dried vomit was splattered across his far too expensive shoes.

Despite the scent of alcohol and sweat that radiated off of Marcus, the old man still took a seat next to him. If he took note of Marcus’ disheveled appearance, he kept it to himself. 

The music switched to an old Taylor Swift song and the man chuckled softly to himself. His face sagged in lines that told Marcus that this man had smiled far more than he frowned. Marcus wished he could say the same.

“Gracie loved this song. She went through this phase where she would sing it all the time but she has-had a lisp. Sorry, I don’t know how well you knew her.” The old man was tender as he spoke but all Marcus felt was the wave of guilt drowning him. Drunken memories fought to resurface of a barely conscious Marcus swerving from lane to lane before hitting what should have been a speed bump, but instead hearing a sickening squelch.

“I-uh not that well, I’m just paying my-uh respects to G-Gracie” Marcus stumbled and crashed over his words. He tried his hardest to stomp the memories down while keeping his alcohol-soaked breath from reaching this poor man’s nose.

“Yes, I’m so glad so many people came. Gracie loved big parties.” The old man’s eyes flitted to Marcus and then down to his suit. “I, however, can not stand the small talk that comes with a party” The old man pulled out a silver flask from his own breast pocket and flipped it over, only for the smallest drop of amber liquid to fall and sink into his dress pants. His eyes went wide with expectation and Marcus smiled to himself before handing the old-man the tiny bottle he had hidden away. The bottle was Marcus’ escape plan, and had been his escape since he was 16. Marcus had admittedly been drinking more heavily since that night. He had not gone to work or answered his phone either. His constant state of inebriation was the only thing that quieted his spinning mind. He felt like it kept him underwater. The memories were just above the surface but he would swim downwards forever if he had to. Clearly this old man felt the same, as he had just thrown back a whole shooter of vodka. 

The sobbing began again, this time twice as harsh and loud as before. Her voice rasped and broke and it made Marcus’ skull feel like it was cracked in half. People began shuffling out of the room, various hands pulled at the sobbing woman until she finally allowed herself to be dragged from the urn that sat at the front of the room. Mourners filed out until the only people left were Marcus and the old man.

“Before today, I had not seen Gracie in eight months.” The old man’s voice was harsh and shaking hands curled to fists in his lap. “I don’t even know what she was doing out there, in the street, in the middle of the night.” That was the same question that Marcus had agonized over for all these days. In the smallest hours of the night when he finally allowed the wave of memories to crash over him, that was what he wanted to know the most. Why was he forced to see the bloodied body of a tiny child everytime he closed his eyes? Even in his drunken state that night, the exact sound of her shriek and the broken gold chain scattered across the road were dug into his mind like indented letters on an otherwise smudged page. Marcus shouldn’t have come here. He was too drunk and sad to deal with another drunker, sadder man. 

Marcus reached into his pocket and dug around for another bottle. Finding two and finishing them off, the sounds of the old man’s cries fell further and further in the background. Marcus needed to see the girl. Not from a blurry picture on facebook, or as a flash of a face with long gone glazed eyes, he needed to see her now. He shot out of his seat and climbed over the old man despite his protests. Marcus was underwater again. He loved being underwater when he was a kid. He was a swimmer until high school. He was the fastest kid in the league. His coach would rave to his father about how far Marcus would go. But by sixteen, money had dried up and the only thing that gave him that feeling was this. 

Underwater everything was far away. Marcus knew that people were probably staring at him as he swerved and stumbled to the front, but he needed to see Gracie. When he reached her he noticed that her urn was made of dainty pink porcelain and it jolted him back to Gracie laying on the road as her baby pink dress was slowly eaten by deep crimson red. Red. The red on the bumper of his car that he only saw the next morning. When his pristine white sedan was decorated with blood and hair that he was forced to wash away. That morning, when he hosed down the car, was the last time he had been sober. He was fully conscious while clearing himself of the blame of the little girl found in the street that same morning. He slowly set down the urn and sank down to the floor. He held his head between his hands, the heels of his palms digging into his eyes.

“Sir, are you alright?” The voice was too sweet and too soothing and Marcus knew that he couldn’t raise his eyes to meet hers.

“I’m fine. Just tired” He mumbled to the ground.

“Oh, I hear that. These kinds of things are so miserable”

“I think I need to leave.”

“That’s okay, this can be a lot for everybody. Gracie would have been so glad you came I’m sure. I’m just going to tell Julie that you're going.” Marcus looked up to see a kindly elderly woman making her way towards the retching sobs and the thought that consumed him was how she did not know that this was all his fault. Marcus craned his neck to catch a glimpse at the old man over the pews and found him with another, much larger, bottle in his hand. He spotted the various “In Memorial of Grace Morgan” pamphlets sprinkled throughout the room and the smiling eyes of the little girl watched him. Marcus no longer felt like he was underwater now, he felt like he was stuck in a current. Water was rushing past his ears and all he could do was to get up and start walking. He walked in the aisle in between all the pews until he reached the door. It was so bright outside. Heat peeled off the road in waves. Slowly, carefully, while trying to focus on the feeling of the world beneath his feet, Marcus kept on walking. He fell to the ground and kicked off his shoes. He stuffed his hands into every pocket and chucked the whole contents of his jacket to break out on the road. When the last bottle shattered against the asphalt Marcus picked up his phone and dialed the number he had stared at almost every day for the past week.

“Hello 911? I’d like to turn myself in for a hit and run.”