Water.
Colourless, tasteless, odourless, liquid, fluid, cold. Two atoms of hydrogen
bound to one atom of oxygen. Or so we were taught.
Today,
the water defied almost everything I had learned in science class. Every time I
went under, I could see its colour- black darkness. Every time I ducked, I
could taste and smell my fear in it. Around me, it converted to solid state at
25 degrees; like a hedge of fired brick with the weight of an elephant resting
on an avian creature completely out of its elements. With each dip, it seemed
to stop flowing and just to be. Submerged, it was cold. Nothing changed that.
Nothing could change that until I became too numb to
feel anything; but for now, it was cold. That was good.
It
was this same ‘Bela’,
the local wash pond. The only thing that had changed was the season. The rains
had come in from the south and filled the cesspool like wine filling a crystal
goblet. It held for me the same attraction local gin holds for the local drunk.
It drew like red wine; mixed wine that sparkles in the cup and swirls round
smoothly. I least expected it to bite like a serpent or sting like a viper. I
did not imagine that my eyes would see strange things and my mouth would savour
brash.
I
had been here a thousand times before. I had bathed the waters. I had swum the
depths. But here I was gasping. Sinking. Drowning. Dying...at fifteen. About
fifteen minutes ago, I had left home for the stream. A couple of minutes ago, I
had sighted the lovely waters. A minute ago, I had jumped.
Come
to think of it, the level had risen considerably. But who thinks before a
dive? After all, I had taken the plunge a thousand times before. I stood on a
piece of rock jutting out over the water which served as our diving board and
launched into the deep. As I wiggled through the water, I saw the bottom. I
tried to stand on the pool floor. It was then I panicked.
My
feet could feel the soft, gritty riverbed sand but my head was not above the
water. My entire adolescent five foot plus frame was submerged. All theory on
floating or porpoising in water was washed away like litter in a Lagos gutter
during a flood as I began to thrash. I forgot about all walking
to shore. My lungs were bursting. Then I bobbed up and gasped.
Water and air entered. Once, twice, thrice. Up; then down. An ungraceful
water dance. Now the clear skies and the voices of friends playing on the bank;
then the lonely, silent depths. Now hope; then despair. Now life; then the fear
of death. Now light; then the smothered candle of darkness. Until then, I
thought dying was just something that soldiers were paid do in Somalia. Definitely not teenage business.
I
thought about the graded hotel adult swimming pools we used to bathe in at
grade school as room check awards and the paradox of the shallow children tubs
we were too proud to soak our feet in. Ego had not drowned then. Ego was
drowning now.
I
must have swallowed and breathed in air and water at least three times before
someone on shore noticed me. I didn’t remember to scream or ask for help. I am
not sure I even remembered to pray. I just remembered to thrash.
Samuel was laughing and pointing; enjoying my display of panic. Jaws
1. Imagination runs
wild. Just then some perceptive young man screamed ‘He’s not pretending’- or something like
that- I really can not remember the words. I can not even remember his face.
All I can remember is that someone came to get me.
There were no life jackets, no life belts, no life buoy, no floating inner
tubes or rafts, no drifting logs, no lifeguards on towers; but someone
came to get me.
I
coughed and spluttered, gasped and buckled in a crumpled heap on the water’s
edge; shaken and near drowned. I was safe, but maybe something in me drowned
that day- ego. No more diving into the deep end. No more ‘I’m
a fish, you’re a geisha’. No
more posing. Poising. Postiche. Whatever.
But
then, maybe ego didn’t completely drown to death; because I still swam the
waters that nearly killed me later that same day- if paddling the shallow end can
be defined as swimming. I swam because someone came to get me.
Stop
thrashing. You will not dance alone. Someone is coming to get you.
‘When you pass through the waters*,
I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.’
~43.2 Isaiah ben Amoz- the Messianic Prophet circa 700BC
‘Afterward he measured a thousand;
and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters
to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of
man, hast thou seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the
brink of the river.’ ~47.5,6 Ezekiel ben Buzi - the Charismatic
Prophet circa 571BC
‘Mountain
Maker, Ocean
Tamer, glimpses of You
burn in my eyes, the worship of Heaven fills up the skies; You do all things
well.’ ~ Chris
Tomlin circa 2009AD]
*Hebrew- mayim (my-yeem);
Water; waters, floods, seas. The Hebrew word for water is always in the plural:
‘waters’.
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