Infinity Pool
by Claire King
Fingertip-nib entry touches turquoise, the split-second shock of the cold plunge. Neurons fire off nervous warnings. Abort. But it's too late for that and the length of me follows through. Noise is swallowed, eardrums thump, hot skin contracts.
I skim the bottom spitting bubbles, eyes wide and chlorine stung, until I hit the blue mosaic. I have nowhere to go but up. Up and out, lungs filled with parched air. Scalded.
He is waiting for my emergence, round empty tray on his upturned palm, greasy smile. Even the emptiness of the off-season pool lends no escape. Which is why we are here, after all. To escape. To forget. As if I would want to forget my father. Yet her hateful red toenails tell me she already has. The sun glints off her oiled-up shins and burns my eyes.
I spin away. They can have my back. If I were a dolphin there would be applause now. And fish.
Better. A seamless vista, out over the brackish divide between pool and ocean. Infinite. Profound. Words of relief swell and divide, incubating in my throat, waiting to be shared. I sink until water saturates my lashes, waiting, breathless, for the words to stop.
After ten minutes I feel nothing more, except the void where their eyes were once on my flesh. I expire, and am submerged, rolling under. The light is diffused, fractal through the hair floating around my face. The silence calms me. Everything is washed away.
Mackerel shimmer by. By the drop-off a gargantuan shadow coasts past, drinking the last of the light as I float into the abyss. The ink-black waters soak me up and I begin to write myself.
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Author's Note
I'd love any constructive feedback on this.
I can't constructively criticise this piece, but I can say that the last line, indeed, the last paragraph, is absolutely stunning. Resignation in drowning? Life recalled in vivid chapters at the end of it? Don't know if that was the intent, but that's what I got. Been there once, and you capture it beautifully.
That's a fabulous last sentence, Claire. And all the writing is so vivid. You put me right there. Beautiful title.
The closing is very strong. Enjoyed this piece, Clare. Great phrasings: "Better. A seamless vista, out over the brackish divide between pool and ocean. Infinite. Profound. Words of relief swell and divide, incubating in my throat, waiting to be shared. I sink until water saturates my lashes, waiting, breathless, for the words to stop."
Claire - Sorry.
Thank you all for your lovely comments and delicious favs! So glad you like this piece.
James - yes, been there too. Thank you for your thoughtful read!
Kathy - The title came first. I've been mulling it over for a long time!
Sam - I'm very pleased you enjoyed it. And what's an i between friends?
I've read this multiple times and it deepens each time I do.
The young narrator is swimming in a pool ("off season"). It's a family vacation, but what is the family now exactly? Is the father divorced? Remarried? Is the woman with "hateful red toenails" the mother he left or the new wife? The narrator wants to escape, to forget, but escape what exactly? Forget what exactly? The piece is tantalizing, but the information is withheld.
The narrator plunges underwater. But what are the "Words of relief" that come to her?
The ending is mysterious. Has she swum out too far? Is there no going back?
I love the idea of swimming under water as escape.
"I skim the bottom spitting bubbles, eyes wide and chlorine stung, until I hit the blue mosaic. I have nowhere to go but up." This is empiricist poetry. It recreates experience with precision.
I really like the descriptions that are powerful, taut but give so much away: "Yet her hateful red toenails tell me she already has."
Last sentence has so many meanings...she's going her own way? It's over?
Either way it works for me.
..The ink-black waters soak me up and I begin to write myself...marvelous!
I liked, rather loved reading this. Excellent work!
Hot day, off season, mom, who hasn't mourned death of her husband, narrator's father, profoundly,(no mother can morn a father's death adequately for a daughter)brings daughter and perhaps mom's new greasy suitor/lover to icy pool, "to forget". Narrator dives in pool, shock, wants to stay under, loses consiousness either literally or figuratively, transitions through brackish to salt water, passes through some astonishing under seascapes and using the black ink of shadows, creates herself anew. Or dies.
What I think anyway. STARZ
Thanks James!