I can’t do it…she says and looks away, and matter-of-factually adds…when I was five I drowned. My older cousin and I swam out on to the lake toward the floating raft…it didn’t look that far away and even now in my memory it seems so close that I could reach out and almost touch it…but I was little and when I got tired quickly she let me ride on her back. It’s funny the things you remember, and the things you don’t…my last memory is her making me shriek joyfully at an imaginary octopus chasing us toward the raft…tickling our toes with its long arms and tentacles, and making us kick harder in the water. Octopus’…she adds dismayed and sinking again…don’t even live in lakes. My uncle pulled me out of the water…her father…and brought me back to life. I don’t remember any of that…but apparently it took hours to find my cousin at the bottom of that lake…imagine that. Now…sometimes…when I dream, I can see the top of that lake as I sink. I can taste it…hear my screams rise in the bubbles that escape me…and that octopus has his arms wrapped around my legs and he’s pulling me down into that cold darkness. When she looks back at me…tear lines down her cheeks reflect in the sunlight and she smiles halfheartedly and tells me…this is why I can’t do this thing that you ask.
About Lawrence Lewis
I do a number of things professionally...but most of all and the true purpose of what I do through "my work" is to provide for my family, be a good husband and great father, and try to make a difference as a world citizen...I guess it's not much more complicated than that 🙂