A Lesson in Misfortune

         Unfortunately, Veronica had never learned to swim. She contemplated the necessity of this skill as she watched a young child try to float on his back for the first time. It didn’t seem too hard, or even scary. She had just never felt the need to learn. After all, how often do people need to swim? she thought, watching the little boy flounder and gurgle before being lifted out of the water by his mother. Only in rare cases like airplane crashes, and even then, aren’t the seat cushions flotation devices? Yes, she was sure it was an unneeded skill. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like to be surrounded by the cool blue water, suspended in the liquid like she was in outer space. Glancing at her flowered cover-up and flip-flops, she almost longed to actually have need of a bathing suit. Of course, at 19 years old, Veronica had been in a pool before. But not in over ten years, and never with her feet off the bottom and her fingers releasing the edge. These days, she was an expert at having fun next to the pool. Veronica always got the best tan.

         She absently watched the boy attempt to float for several more minutes before gladly accepting a Spiderman towel and the offer of lunch. The pool area was empty and the last ripples settled, leaving a glassy, smooth aqua surface. The Los Angeles sun beat down on Veronica, sending heat waves pulsing through her skin. She stared longingly into the depths of the water and abruptly got to her feet. She crept quietly to the edge of the pool, staring at the tile mosaic glittering ten feet below her. The bottom didn’t look very far away at first, but the more she looked at it, the deeper it seemed. She backed away; intimidated by the nerves that made her skin crawl for reasons she didn’t understand when she was faced with a body of water. Turning on her heel, she started for the safety of her deck chair. She hadn’t noticed the puddles of water left behind by the novice swimmer who had just departed; her foot lost contact with the ground and she felt gravity snatching at her greedily. She seemed to hang in the air for an instant, just long enough to realize what was about to happen before the surface of the pool slammed her skin like a sheet of ice. Ten feet seemed a lot farther when Veronica was falling in slow motion, her limbs weighed down by the unfamiliar viscosity of the water around her.

         Supposedly, the best way to teach a child to swim is to drop it in the water. The same rule does not apply to young adults, whose first instinct is to breathe in, filling their shocked lungs with water. The liquid flooded Veronica’s lungs rapidly, the coolness stabbing her chest. In her panic, she thrashed her arms and legs, desperately trying to fight her way to the surface. Her flip flops slid off her feet and bobbed silently to the top, rocking on the waves created by her struggle. Her long black hair fanned out and waved slowly, like seaweed, wrapping itself around her face. Veronica never noticed that she hadn’t hit the bottom of the pool. She continued to writhe around in the pool until she grew weak, her legs too heavy to kick and her eyes stinging too harshly to stay open. The sun’s refracted light shimmered on her face, a mere three feet below the air. If she had known, if she had opened her eyes, if she had taken a few strokes, she might have broken the surface. She might have dragged herself out of harm’s way, sputtering and shivering on the deck. She might have made it.

         Unfortunately, Veronica had never learned to swim.