The dream always begins the same. The memory surfaces with a line from a book, a scene from a movie, the splash of the shower against my face. My feet dangle above open water. The world becomes horizontal, no topography but the waves. The contours lie beyond the horizon, or yards below with the boat.
Another memory rises. Another body of water, this one with a sandy bottom pressed against my face. Me holding my breath as though my life depends on it, which it might.
Exhaling slowly, I simulate drowning in this personal waterboarding, only without the board or the information or the medical team standing by in case I fail. Only the water and her weight over locked elbows pressing against my neck that leaves me no leverage but deceit. When I lay still, almost floating beneath her hands, her grip slackens and I am reborn, reentering the world kicking and screaming, never quite seeing it the same after the struggle, after seeing the expression on her face which reminds me that I am alive, unexpectedly.
And she wonders why I lie to her. That day it was the only way to survive. I know I should feel guilty, and often do, for both lying and surviving.
When we begin this life, we can see the bottom clearly. Gold and jewels strewn from other people's wrecks lay sparkling upon the ocean floor, waiting for us to reach out and claim them. We learn to snorkel, then to dive. Confident, we strap on our equipment and slip beneath the waves.
Immediately, unseen currents pull us. Sharks maraud us and eels snap at us from hidden holes. Coral fingers grasp at our air hoses, at our exposed skin. Jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-war threaten to entangle us in their tentacles.
When we recover, we find the sun has retreated behind the clouds. The water has turned murky, the treasure is no longer within sight. Low on air, tired and cramping, we return to the surface. Some exchange air tanks and rest to try again, learning from their experience. Others learn to embrace the sea.
Novels become short stories that shrink to essays small enough to send by e-mail, descriptions without purpose, fragments without context repeated endlessly like waves upon the sea. Echoes of a life drawn to its own reflection in the water, the words my nemesis and her curse.
In the dream there is no weight, only the perfect freedom of water embracing me like a womb, the ocean a mother willing to reclaim me if I let her. The shore is distant. Darkness nears. I only have to wait. Though before I am drawn to her breast, the hands of strangers pluck me from the water. But I continue to hold my breath until I wake on the shore, safe in my bed, the sea still echoing in my ears.
© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III
