Drowning

I wrote this in 2006. This is the story I'm favoring for the fiction submission; I think it's good. I think that its brevity (as compared to the other entries) works in its favor, and I think that it is the most concise and least specific (as in, you don't have to know my history to understand it) of the works. It's also probably the least confusing.

I think the introduction is a little clunky, but I didn't know how else to introduce the premise. I hope the formatting holds for the copy-and-paste.

Looking back, I was writing about a very specific person as a character in this story, and, while this roughly covers the role he played in my life a few years ago, I was really writing about the animus, or, to put it in more pagan and less archetypal terms, the God. I think this story is much more interesting now than it was whenever I was writing it about a person, honestly. It's an interesting step on my path to feminism - I had to learn to let go of my need for a male, or for the masculine yang, to support me emotionally, and that involved a great deal of suffering. I started an addendum to this a couple years ago but fell flat; I might try again if I get the itch. I like to build on work as I grow.

I also like the description it gives of mental illness - severe depression runs on both sides of my family, and, looking at it now, I was very severely depressed and channeling it into the only forum I could use to express. I think that drowning in plain sight is a good metaphor for being mentally ill.

This is "Drowning."

Drowning

There had always been a barrier between myself and the outside world of people and things. Very occasionally, if feeling especially connected, I could place a hand through, but that was about the furthest extent of the permeability of this invisible wall. The others might stop and smile at me, or stop and attempt to converse with me but, ultimately, they always learned that such attempts were futile, and I accepted this inevitable end every time someone made contact. I had learned to accept that there was an invisible but, ultimately, impenetrable barrier between me and everyone else.

This didn't bother me until the water appeared beneath my feet. At first it was merely a barely detectable dampness on the ground but, slowly but surely, splashes followed my footsteps until I found each step sluggish and difficult in the deepening water.

This was a cause for alarm, I eventually realized, and those on the other side of the barrier seemed oblivious, incapable of detecting my growing predicament. It seemed obvious to me and, yet, they continued on around me, still occasionally trying to engage me, but either ignoring or not seeing the water that was threatening to consume me.

Perhaps I should alert them, I realized, as the water began to approach my waist.

Can you hear me?

I tapped tentatively at the barrier, hoping that someone would perhaps hear the sound on the other side, but they simply continued to mill about aimlessly, occasionally still glancing over in my direction and smiling vaguely, not seeming to hear my increasingly urgent requests for help.

Please?

I pointed downwards, trying to keep my voice steady as fear began to wrack my body at the prospect of no one ever hearing me.

The water's getting deeper and I don't know why. I think I might drown if it continues this way.

"Hi," I could see someone say to me from the other side, a friendly smile on their face, not realizing what was wrong, only that I was present.

I began to scream, pounding my fists against the barrier with all of the strength I could muster.

This seemed to attract the attention of a man nearby, who, alone among his peers, looked curiously at me, and then gestured to his ears. He could not hear me, but he saw me.

Please! I'm waist-deep in water and it's getting deeper! I'm afraid I'll drown if it doesn't stop!

The look of curiosity on the face of the stranger altered to one of mild concern, and he stepped closer, reaching out and tapping at the barrier with his forefinger before smiling cryptically.

"Quite a wall you've got yourself, there," he said, pointing at the barrier and relaxing his smile to a friendly grin. I could just begin to hear his voice through the usually soundproof wall.

I can hear you! Can you hear me, too? I began to gesticulate madly at him, not even knowing what my gestures were communicating aside from panic.

"Are you okay?" Clearly the intent, if not the precise meaning, was getting through. "You look a little wet." His words penetrated more and more clearly, and I assumed he could hear me equally well.

The water - I don't know where it came from, but it's getting deeper, and I'm afraid I might drown.

With one fluid motion he stepped through and stood on top of the water next to me without blinking an eye. Looking down from above with an expression that was equal parts sympathetic and amused, he stated unequivocally, "This? You can't drown in this."

I gaped for a moment, forgetting my situation, awed by both his ability to cross over with ease and his ability to stand atop the water. Then his words sank in and I felt anger begin to blossom beneath the fear at his cavalier treatment.

That must be easy for you to say, water-walker.

His tone became softer and more serious. "Do you think I've never come close to drowning before? This," and he made a sweeping gesture that invalidated my potentially dire predicament," is nothing. You won't let yourself be drowned by a puddle like this, will you?" He tapped his foot on the surface of the water and little splashes sprung up, making me even more drenched, if that was possible.

Give me a hand up, will you?

"Sure - but I won't hold you up forever. You have to either learn to stand like me or learn to swim."

I eagerly reached up and grasped the proffered hand, allowing him to pull me to the surface.

Why can you walk on water like this?

I narrowed my eyes at him even while desperately clinging to his arm, feeling my weight already beginning to drag me down into the murky depths. Knowing it was only waist-deep brought no reassurance.

"I am what I am." He shrugged noncommittally, smiling at me.

After a long silence in which I pondered this mysterious stranger, I remembered the problem, and thought of his departure.

Are you really going to let me go?

"Eventually, yes."

Why?

Panic began to edge into my voice again, and he placed his hand over mine reassuringly for the briefest of seconds before releasing it.

"Because I have to go."

But I depend on you. You're the only one who can cross over. Without you I'll drown. You're the only one who even saw me here and knew what was happening. How am I supposed to survive? I'll die in here!

"No, you'll stand or swim." There was a quiet confidence in his tone, and he fixed me with a penetrating gaze as he spoke.

It was long moments before I noticed that he had slowly begun to lower me.

Not now. Please stay longer. Please don't let me drown.

"I can't hold you above this forever." His eyes were sad but firm in their resolve to remain unmoved by my plight.

Please don't let me drown. No one else ever crossed over. You can't leave me.

I began to weep softly, despairing, and my words grew quieter and more urgent, the tone belying the intense emotion behind the words.

"You won't drown. You'll be fine, and I know I'm leaving, but I'm sure we'll see each other again." His smile attempted to comfort even as he lowered me further into the now-rough water, but his words only aggravated my panic since I knew that, however true he may have believed them to be, they were lies.

As I felt myself sink in further, waist-, then chest-deep, I realized with growing dread that the water had become significantly deeper since the appearance of my strange benefactor.

At this revelation I began to try to clamber back up his legs, clawing and grasping and sobbing my pleas. He clucked his tongue at me and said, "You'll never learn anything if you just keep on clawing at me."

Waves lapped at my face and I floundered as he stepped slowly back through the barrier, the same look of mild concern on his face as the one he had worn when he first noticed my situation.

"I'm sure we'll see each other again," he said as the water began to close over my head, and I looked up and could make out his face through the tumultuous surface, my hand reaching towards him before even that was fully submerged.

"I never say goodbye," as I began to black out, feeling the air crushed from my lungs almost as if the words rather than the water stopped my breathing.

"I never say goodbye."