Guy--Part Thirty-Three

Splog # 144

Thirty-Three

   Guy unexpectedly found it somewhat enjoyable to be exploring in the darkness under the water. Because of the pressure all around him, he couldn't move very quickly but each movement produced sensations utterly unlike what he was used to experiencing up above in the air. He was also surprised to find himself less concerned about an unseen assailant now that he was completely enveloped in darkness than he had been with the one point of light in front of him. He was still feeling a little chilly but the exercise of moving through the water and  the feeling  of it rubbing gently on his skin evolved the chill to just this side of a tingle which wasn't unpleasant at all. Completely unsure of the best course to take in his explorations, he simply went forward from where he found himself a few inches at a time. He skimmed his hands lightly over the surface he was facing, ahead and to the right with his right hand and then ahead and to the left with his left hand. He'd swivel his torso to the right or left as he searched and stretch his arm out as far as he could. He hadn't expected the ocean floor to be so barren. All he was coming across was sandy mud, or muddy sand and, occasionally, small pebbles. Once he paused in his search and dug his right hand deeply into the sand. He delved past his wrist and halfway to his elbow before he found anything besides the ubiquitous sand. His hand stopped in contact with a flat surface that seemed to extend as far as his fingers could explore. He wondered if it was a large boulder or even the floor of the ocean under its lsandy layer. He pulled his hand out and waved it languidly in the water to remove the sand. He considered turning around and trying the opposite direction., but decided instead to try taking a wide curve rather than making any abrupt change of direction. But should he move towards the left or the right? There didn't seem to be any advantage in either choice so, being right-handed, he decided to go left. (This sort of decision was favored by his parents, who advocated not always choosing the easiest or most obvious way.) He stretched out his left hand and swung his chest in that direction. But instead of turning back forward after his leftward exploration, he brought his right hand in and stretched out his left again. And so his search continued. Until, feeling his legs and arms gettting slightly cramped, he extended all four limbs and straightened them until he had raised his body into an upside down v. He luxuriated in the stretch and then, finding that his hands and feet had little traction in the moist sand, he let them slowly slide outward and collapsed through the water until he was once again lying full length on the ocean floor. On impulse, he rotated onto his back and made a snow angel, although considering his artistic medium, he figured it must actually be a sand angel, if not a mud angel. And then his left foot struck something and he froze where he was. He kept his foot against the object and then maneuvered his right leg over to his left, so that, as he pushed himself up with his hands, he'd be facing approximately toward the object, although he couldn't see it. Now he was sittting up with his legs outstretched in front of him, his left foot still in contact with his find. Next he lay himself down on his left side and curled down towards his feet, with his arms stretched out. His hands weren't contacting anything yet. So he curled himself tighter until he found his feet with his hands. And then he was in contact with the object and making a thorough tactile exploration. First, he assumed a more comfortable position and then ran his hands over all aspects of the object. It seemed to be about three feet long and maybe half of that in width. It was oval in shape and seemed to have a smooth, rubbery surface. The outward edges of it were uneven. They went up and down at intervals like a mountain range. But the center of it seemed to be a depression, like a valley in the mountains. As large as it was, Guy didn't understand how, when he had fallen, he hadn't landed in it or on it. He must have tripped at one of the ends and just missed it by a slight margin. He wondered what it was. It didn't feel like stone or rock. The surface felt man-made. Although, he realized, anything under water probably gets rubbed smooth like that from currents or whatever. Well, now he had found it and anything else seemed relatively unimportant. He wondered what the voice was doing. "Mr. Spatula," he said softly, not expecting any response. Receiving none, he returned to the thing he had found and explored it a little more, wondering if there might be an aspect of it that he had missed.