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Almost Drowning
- Southern Illinois University Press
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70 A L M O S T D R O W N I N G I want to enter the shallow end of the pond, but you choose where it is deeper, by the control pump on the other side. We swim next to each other; your overhand propels your lithe body beyond me. My sidestroke is not as strong. I know I won’t make it. I turn around, and you follow me back, swim beside me. My heart pounds in my head, breath in hard quick spurts. I begin to sink. Don’t give up. Keep going. Put your feet down. I pull myself up to the patch of sand, numb, beside the pump. You ask me if I were frightened just then in the water, you ask me what I am thinking, the needles and leaves of the firs and sycamores backlit in their own shadows through the dusk, making them appear more real than real. 71 I tell you I did not want to finish my life at the bottom of this pond in Conway, and before I take your hands in mine, early stars beginning to appear in the water, I try to understand, when halfway to the float, you tell me you cannot save me from drowning. ...