.png)
Taking Flight
Why couldn’t she be fearless, like the others? But it’s not natural to throw yourself backwards into the sea. Water is dangerous, didn’t they know?
She was eight when she fell. Slipped on the grass, still glistening from last night’s rains.
Underneath everything is a brownish grey. Sounds are unrecognizable. It’s only when you surface that the panic sets in. When you hear the water’s roar and you know it will devour you again. CPR, a passing farmer and his Alsatian saved her.
But the river growled through twenty years of dreams.
From the luminous Caribbean her husband calls up, 'You can do it.'
'These fish better be fucking beautiful!' she shrieks before falling.
Hysteria, thrashing around, then calm. Through her mask she can breathe, she can see clearly.
She’s floating high above a strange, colourful planet, watching its inhabitants go about their daily business.
Later, back on the boat, she says, 'It’s like flying, isn’t it?'
