scene in two voices; the pool

something i wrote for class in september. the first thing i thought of for my first post

I’m surrounded by brightness. The room has gleaming white walls and the tiles to match, everything highlighted by the fluorescents staring down from the ceiling. By the pool, the red timers blink and blink, letting me know it’s been three quarters of an hour since they last reset. The smell of chlorine stretches into every corner of the room; even in the lockers, it’s impossible to escape. All four walls are plastered with boards banded in the school colors that proudly proclaim student records to anyone who cares to look. The water slaps against the edges of the pool in an uneven rhythm, crashing against the tile and collapsing back on itself infinitely. All the  colors of this room (and every room like it that I’ve ever seen) feel exaggerated, much more intense than the soft greens and browns of the real world outside. The fans whir to life in the walls as the clock strikes six, blasting air across my skin and chopping up the surface of the water. Goosebumps rise across my exposed thighs, and the thought of emerging from the cocoon of my fleece sends more of them up my arms. It’s cold outside, too, of course, but the well-maintained cold of this room doesn’t comfort me the way the early-morning outdoors chill always has. I stand and pull off my jacket, dropping it on the bench as I kick off my shoes. The swim cap pulls the skin on my forehead tight and yanks on my hair as I put it on, but I blink through it as I have every other morning and snap my goggles down over my eyes. My bare feet squeak against the icy dampness of the tile floor and my shins graze the coils of lane line as I make my way to the pool’s edge. The tiles here are smaller and rougher, and as I stand on them I feel their pattern imprint itself in sharp red lines on the soles of my feet. I take a deep breath, hold it, and jump, wrapping my arms around my knees and slamming my eyes shut tight as the hyper-blue water rises up to meet me.

The pool is warm and quiet. This early in the morning, there’s nobody else here, and the water is still as my reflection stares unwaveringly back at me. The only sound in the room is the gentle lap of blue water against the sides of the pool, almost like the slow breath of sleep. I step out of my flip-flops and unzip my fleece, putting them neatly with my bag on one of the metal benches lining the pool deck. Above me, the walls are lined with the records left behind by all those who have swum in the pool before me, and I read each familiar name just as I have countless mornings before. As I walk towards the edge of the pool, the slap of my feet against the pristine tile echoes against the high ceiling and white walls, the sound spinning away only to be returned by the room’s edges to wrap back around me. Goggles dangling from my wrist, I snap my swim cap over my head with one practiced motion. All the room’s sound becomes soft, muffled by silicone, and when I press my goggles down over my eyes, a faint blue lays itself across everything in my sight. The tile is cool against the soles of my feet, not yet damp from the rush of people dripping their ways in and out of the water that will come, inevitably, later in the day. For now, I am the only one here, and so I raise my arms above my head, close my eyes, and dive. My body slides into the water seamlessly, and underwater I open my eyes and take in the deep blue of this secret, soundless world. My breath pushes out of me in a torrent of white bubbles, hurried like city people shoving past each other as they all race unknowingly towards a shared destination. All the air leaves body and as I begin to sink downwards to the blurry pool floor I give a sharp kick of my legs and come surging back up, through the water’s surface.

Author's Note

tell me WHATEVER you think but be reasonably kind for i am an infant

Reviews

[Sami Khalil]

"For now, I am the only one here, and so I raise my arms above my head, close my eyes, and dive. My body slides into the water seamlessly, and underwater I open my eyes and take in the deep blue of this secret, soundless world."

A very good poem around a pool... Thank you for sharing...:)........................

[Colton Patterson]

For an infant you write quite well.

[zea]

THANKS omg