Drift

Drift

The late afternoon sun beat down hot on my head. I was treading water. A stiff chill started deep within and spread to my extremities, despite my protective suit. I wondered if it could be shock. I glanced around for the boat. It was to my right, not far away. I gave a signal and our driver headed over to retrieve me. I held on where I was, the water lapping at my face. It tasted like tears. 

Shay and Riley surfaced as I was being helped into the boat. There was a tech who looked me over, removing the tank and my BCD. “Here, drink this,” she said. And, “Let me just put some of this on your ankle--you might have brushed the coral getting away.” 

The others were checking the regulator and discussing what had probably gone wrong. I sat on the boat’s deck, a large towel around me, warmer now, but numb. My mind wandered back...

Shay’s face was the first thing I saw after the traffic accident, when I finally opened my eyes. I must have been awake in there for awhile, in the dark of my head, but there was nothing playing on my brain’s big screen, and sounds from outside had begun to register, so I opened my eyes to see Shay, resting next to me on the hospital bed, sleeping, my hand in his. 

My younger brother was my hero, my best friend, and the person who had to tell me that Rene, my fiance, my lover, my very soul was gone. 

The sun set as Rene and I traveled home from a weekend with friends--I had been driving. There were headlights suddenly in the darkness, a lorry coming head-on. Rene was killed instantly in the impact. I merely had bruises, a concussion, cuts on my face from the glass. They told me I was lucky I had not been gravely injured--I could have lost an eye, been blinded, not to mention killed; even the driver of the lorry that hit us had to be shunted to a trauma center by helicopter. Lucky. Lucky lucky lucky. There was a bilious bubbling inside of me, when they said that, like greasy dark laughter, swirling around the word ‘lucky.’ It choked me, and I coughed until my throat was raw.

It seemed to me those external injuries healed so fast. Like one day I was watching the rain from a hospital bed--or was I watching a window through tears? I don’t remember the difference. I can clearly hear Shay’s voice in my room, but all words we spoke in the days just after, they are lost. Then I was home, and my face in the mirror registered no evidence from the accident.

Once I was released, I did nothing much for six months--just working from home, but not really noticing the work or the days. I had phone calls and visits, but I couldn’t remember talking to people or the things they brought me. One morning, for example, I noticed a box of muffins on the kitchen island that I was certain had not been there the night before. The tag on the clear plastic cover indicated they were two weeks expired. Upon examining them, they proved to be quite hardened. I called Shay to ask whoever would bring me stale muffin-rocks. 

He laughed uneasily and said, “Mum and Aunt Glynnis, Ames, don’t you remember?” 

“But that was almost a month ago, Shay.” 

“Oh, Amy. You have to start doing things again. And not just reading books. You’ve read too many. Start playing in the light again, Honey, o.k?”

I agreed to attempt it, then said good bye. I set my phone down and picked up book two of The Gulag Archipelago and for a change of pace, went out onto my sun porch to read in the swing, unconscious then of how I was embodying painful ironies. I watched the birds at Rene’s feeder. When night fell, I watched the stars. I hadn’t read more than ten pages of the book, so I felt a tickle of vindication. I knew that wasn’t what Shay had meant, but I thought Baby steps, little brother. Baby steps.

On their break from Uni, my brother and our best friend Riley decided to take me with them on holiday. We had all certified to dive several years ago, but had never gone out together. Shay and Riley are the best people I know. It didn’t matter if we were laughing, arguing, or crying--everything with them was a good time. Our holiday was the first thing I had looked forward to since Rene died.

The first few minutes being under water had been glorious. Everything looked and felt hyper-real, like I had just emerged from sensory deprivation into sea water, a world more beautiful, that made so much more sense, than the one I had been living in. I was captivated by the motions underwater and frequently just drifted, to marvel at the reef and the life around me and just sort of float in it. It did seem to be embracing me in return; the water, the inviting wave of the sea plants, the choreography of the fish. 

I know I was about 12 meters down when the regulator just...stopped. I hit the switch to inflate my BCD. Nothing happened. I knew I didn’t have time to waste. I didn’t have a chance to take a complete breath, but I did not exhale, either. I just kicked hard for the surface. Shay and Riley did not seem to notice--they were still photographing the reef, maybe 5 meters away, their backs to me, and I didn’t want to waste time getting their attention.

It’s weird how when you’re certain something that is as bad as it can be without killing you is happening, your thoughts slow--way--down, even if your actions are in a frenzy. Mine do, anyway. I could feel how at first, my movements didn’t seem to propel me anywhere. I adjusted carefully, positioned myself so that I was “vertical” to the bottom and the surface, and just visualized myself as a torpedo launching skyward. It did feel as if I was racing in a furious burst of speed toward the top, my feet in their fins working overtime. But within seconds, I just felt like I’d stopped, become extra heavy, and seemed to sag back towards the bottom. Maybe I had been drifting all along. There was a sick ache in my belly and somewhere in my mind, I could feel the water entering my lungs, could hear it, even. I was outside myself, saw my open eyes staring toward the sunlight while my heavy body drifted down past the reef. 

Pulling back from those thoughts required as great an effort as struggling to the surface. I had nothing to push off from at that point, I realized, but when I imagined my feet against the post of the dock back home, it helped. Again, I was rushing upward, but this time, the water moved like it was in ropey layers, and I needed to break through several of them.

Again, the sagging feeling and an awareness that I must kick differently took hold. This time, I did not let myself slow completely. I pictured tearing the water above me with my hands while also pulling myself through a tunnel. That helped, and I didn’t slow down.

When I say I visualized these things, it wasn’t all consciously done. It was more like a movie in my head that sometimes took a turn, but I could correct it if I tried. Visualizing held the panic back, like putting the lid of a garbage can in front of the blast of water from a hydrant or hose pointed in my direction--the panic was still hitting at the surface of my fancy, and dripping around the edges, but it wasn’t taking me off course or obliterating my path to escape.

I knew I was close to the surface when the water around me began to move differently, to feel lighter. I wanted to run, now, but again, there was nothing under my feet. I had to imagine my face surfacing. My lungs were sandbags and my heartbeat pounded in my ears, slower and slower. Finally, my hands broke the surface, my fingers frozen into blades, rending the water to ribbons and pulling down along my body as my head and then my face at last felt the air, and I sucked it in greedily. I realized my scuba gear was still on, though I had lost my mask. In that moment, fragments of training returned, though in the moment below when I realized a malfunction had occurred, nothing registered besides the need to surface.

Riley and Shay seemed to be watching me closely through dinner and our walk on the beach. I couldn’t tell if what I was saying was strange or if they were merely concerned. Perhaps I seemed too unaffected. Or maybe they were waiting for another shoe to drop, whatever that could be. Even so, they laughed at my quips. Being close to them, I felt safe. Sometimes, though,  one of those movie-versions of a black hole would enter my mind. Maybe that is what they could see, somehow; a thing inside of me, pulling down everything that was me and not allowing any light to get to the surface. 

Later that night, when everyone else was in bed, I went outside through the sliding door. I could hear the waves, not very far away. I slipped into the hammock and surrendered to its gentle sway, one foot over the edge, pushing against the next tree. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, the warm breeze of the tropical night was sweet and gentle, the whisper of the caress of a lover. I could again feel the first moments down under, drifting freely beside the reef, the motion and press of the water all around me. I was suddenly back under then, struggling to get to a place where I could breathe. The struggle felt real, in my arms and legs, in my lungs and heart.

My arms pushed out from my body, involuntarily. My foot shoved hard against the tree, and I was dumped out of the hammock into the sand, hurriedly drawing a deep breath, coughing. It didn’t even occur to me to open my eyes until I felt the rough smack against the ground. I let my head fall back and unclenched my jaw, my knees, and the muscles of my face. 

When I opened my eyes, I saw the constellation Scorpio high above. Had he watched earlier, too, as I clawed my way from the sea, like a repentant Artemis? I wondered if he fumed in his celestial perch, blaming his beloved for remaining alive, for being his downfall. Did he long for her as she simply must have longed for him? And Artemis--did she, the cause of Scorpio’s ruin, grieve for him in her heart forever? Poor Scorpio, I thought, in a rush of pathos.

Lying in the sand, which was a mixture of cool and warm against my back, my head propped on my hands, I watched my Scorpio. I wondered if he ever cursed Libra, who had taken his claws. I felt tears on my face, tasted their saltiness, like seawater, on my lips. 

I didn’t know when or if the world around me would ever feel real again. At least I had felt that, fleetingly, down below the surface, under all that salty water. Maybe that is what led to the panic? Maybe the regulator and line had been fine. Maybe I just didn’t yet have the capacity to feel normal. If only we could carry that around in tanks on our backs--the feeling of normality--to be inhaled slowly, whenever life deflates us to the point where alone, we cannot take it all back in again.

Watching the stars, especially my Scorpio, I let myself relax by degrees, and listened to the distant crashing waves, the palms swaying above me in the breeze, and wisps of faraway music coloring the darkness.