Sometimes it's hard to get out of the pool. The day had been hot, really sweltering hot like it often was at the end of August. It is finally time for you to unwind and let loose as the parents watch on from their folding lawn chairs and sip their iced drinks. Your kicking around the floaty toys and trying to dunk your sister when Mom and Dad aren't paying attention. You find the repetition of yourself saying, "What?, I didn't do anything" starting to get old even to your own ears.
The warnings start, "Ten more minutes and it is time to get dried off and go inside". You don't care that your fingers are so wrinkled that they look less like your own and more like your Grandmothers did the last time that you saw her. It was also summer then as well, but she didn't appear to be enjoying the beauty of that season as much as you are now. She was in the odd-smelling wing of the hospital laying in a very tall bed, you were standing smaller than usual besides her trying to remember what you had hoped to talk about moments before you stood in that tiny spot.
That was all over, and now, as the parents warnings were getting louder and slightly more disturbing, with ultimatums that included the mention of with-holding of ice cream and something about pulling the large rubber plug on the side of the pool, you sink lower and lower to the bottom, where the darker plastic feels slimy to your fingertips. Fighting to hold yourself down at the very bottom and allowing the weight of the water to push against you, the threats from above are only wave-like noises now, and the sound of your own heartbeat slowly lulls you into another slower place of somewhat comfort and peace.
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