18

“Think of me as your confidence booster, Barty. It sounds a bit corny, I know, but that’s what I’m here for. You want to stop, we’ll stop, and then when you catch your breath we’ll start again.” You bobbed up and down in the pool like a cork in an ocean swell, your head ducking under while you tried to tread water and keep up with the speech of your lifeguard. “You could have worn a swim cap. You know you have a lot of hair and thick too for a white girl.”

“I don’t like,” you swallowed a mouthful of water, “I don’t like the way it makes me look underwater.” You sank again, the weights around your ankles helped. “Thurlis, can we take a break?”

“Absolutely not. Explain this concept for me. You don’t like the way you look underwater. Have you been swimming in any mirrored pools lately? You can’t exactly see clearly underwater.”

“F**k you, I’ve got a really well balanced reflectivity index so I can see pretty damn clearly underwater. I could out dive those little Mexican kids in the Yucatan any day and for pennies on pearls.” He laughed at you. Your arms beat the water keeping you a float.

“You’re a siren luring sea men to their death.” Thurlis

“F**k that I’m a hydra,” You spit out a mouthful of water. “You want to leave an impression on your opponent so they never want to see you again. Imagine when they see me through goggles underwater in face paint with all this hair behind me, f*****g terrifying.”

“At best you would be a medusa,” Thurlis retorted.

“There is no ‘a medusa’ there is ‘The Medusa’. Titans are one of a kind,” Your arms were starting to get tired.

“And you’re not one of a kind?” Thurlis

“Are you asking hypothetically? If I were greek, then I would be?” “I’m a professional, and I don’t deal in rhetoric, statistics say there is someone else just like you.” Thurlis

“That’s true, and I’m not a Titan.”

“You would have ruled the world.” Thurlis “Tenses, of course.”

“No one lives forever.” Thurlis

“Cut off the head of a hydra and another and another sprout in its place. No matter how many heads you cut off the sea, well I guess it isn’t infinite because eventually you would be devoured, but you get the idea. Heracles couldn’t defeat the hydra on his own, it took the help of his nephew to kill the beast, funny it seems like a father son activity, but I guess that’s another story. For all his labors, Heracles failed at that one, horseshoes and hand grenades and such, technicalities. If they want to kill me they better do the f*****g job, none of this half assed hero bullshit.” You forgot about the task at hand.

“Anything I could say now would fall flat after your explanation, you’re confidence is on a rise.” Thurlis

“I appreciate that, Thurlis.”

“Your first session is almost done.”

“Well f**k I want a break,” you spit out more water. “You’re not breathing hard.”
Thurlis

“I’ve got f*****g weights strapped to my legs.”

“You know where the shallow end is.” Thurlis

“You want the title?”

“I want the title, you’ve got 7 minutes.” Thurlis

“Give me fifteen,” your bobbing head bouncing towards the slope.” I’m pissing in this pool.”

“You’re drinking the kool‐aid.” Thurlis “It’s sterile.”