drowning

…not so long ago, I was drowning,
fighting for life.
I think I still am.
This near to death, you wish you’d got religion.
I pound my weakening arms in slow motion against the glass, the water a lead weight against every inch of skin. Try to ignore the camp-fire burning in your chest.
I don’t see any movement around me, so I’m guessing everyone else is already dead.
This isn’t filling me with hope.
My vision is going and its about then, say five seconds ago, I realised I’m really going to die.
I’m really going to die.
You know.
Die. Dead. Death.
Realisation.
Too lost in panic to tell whether I’m pissed off or just surprised, I’m less concerned about there being a heaven and just hoping there isn’t a hell. Looking back, I’m pretty disappointed my life didn’t flash before my eyes. Sorry if that spoiled anything for you.
No shining tunnel.
No semi-forgotten relatives beckoning me.
No angelic charm offensive.
No soft pink fluffy feeling.
Nothing.
Shit.
I try to strike the glass a final time, but I’m too weak now. My arm falls in numb slow motion away from my body. Far too weak.
I know.
When you don’t breathe for long enough, your lungs panic, pulling back from your rib-cage. They drain every penny of oxygen from your last breath, which is already wet cardboard stale.
That taste in your mouth, its how hourglass sand tastes.
At this point, you feel that first pull at the back of your throat. Imagine there’s a rope attached to the roof of your mouth, and a fat guy swinging from a noose at the end.
Reflexes fighting willpower fighting reflexes to release the concrete weight in your chest, and air will never, ever feel so heavy.
Believe me on this one.
Not much oxygen left now, say two minutes, as carbon dioxide builds in your blood-stream, rollercoasting through your veins as your heart rate picks up. Muscles are four a.m. numb and wasted adrenaline leaves your eyes burning.
Running out of time, boys and girls.
Your body tries to anaerobically produce energy, enough to keep you conscious but you haven’t taken a breath for three and a half minutes. Two hundred and ten seconds.
Count them.
Two hundred and eleven.
Two hundred twelve.
Count.
The time of your life.
Two hundred twelve and a half…
Fingers and toes are pre-packaged frozen little piggies. You can’t even tell if they’re still there.
Your heartbeat is a bass-line in your ears and now you gag on your tongue.
That taste in your mouth, its hourglass sand and blood, from biting through the flesh lining your gums. It doesn’t even hurt, your body tranquillised by cold and suffocation.
Forget saving yourself, it isn’t up to you anymore.
Two hundred and thirteen.
Times up.
You can stop counting.
When your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen its shuts down. Lights out.
This is how you get brain damage.
Like a power cut.
This is how you die.
And there’s no way out.
You can stop counting.
Because you’re dead.
Sorry.
The end.
You know. I know. Everyone has it coming.
Just wait your turn.
As for myself, I haven’t taken a breath for over four minutes and, honestly, I never thought it would end like this. Actually, I have no idea how I thought it would end. But not this. An icy rush water-falling into pressure beaten lungs.
I finally realise I’m not going to make it, and I give in. Surrendering your life, a feeling, it can’t ever really be expressed.
I breathe out what’s left. Not much, but its my life.
Surrender. Goodbye.
Barely a breath.
For a tenth of a second, my entire body is a hollowed eggshell, splintering ice.
Then I pass out.
( Now )
I’m awake. I
I
I’m alive.
My lungs are still the white tip of a flame, but I’m free in the water, on the surface, gasping breaths of life. I’m alive.
The taste in your mouth you think is hope, its just salt-water.
Holy shit, I’m still alive.
Welcome to the world.
I would say somebody up there still likes me, but if they did, I wouldn’t be here in the first place now, would I?
Well?…