It was the most unique form of torture I'd come across in my entire 15 years of living. My eyes stung, my arms and legs felt like lead, and my lungs felt shrivelled inside my chest despite the gasping pants that made my mouth as dry as a desert in an attempt to just breathe. I felt like I was suffering accute dehydration, despite the immense blue water that swept my loose hair into my eyes and around my neck and choked me with every stroke.
I came up for air in a split few seconds, and felt sick to the stomach, like I would have thrown up if given the time, but all I can do is gasp and pant, and stretch my arms out towards the block, desperately trying to get a grip on the cold, slippery metal bar.
I hang there for a moment, trying to swallow with a dry tongue and parched mouth, before glancing upwards.
"Thirty seconds, then one more lap and you're home free. C'mon, you can do it."
I shake my head as viciously as I can in my state of exhaustion, which is really just kind of a weak movement from where it's resting lightly against the plastic diving block. "C'mon. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."
I push off the tiled side nonetheless, and start the movement of my arms again. They're slow and unco-ordinated, and my kicks aren't getting me anywhere, painful despite their lack of propulsion. My breaths are coming much too frequently, but I can't help it; I'm tired, thirsty, sore, desperate to lie down and sleep for a week.
I can hear it, just before I turn my head and the sound of breath rushing through my throat roars in my ears-- a ringing sound, like a glass being tapped in one long note, but it only lasts for as long as I can keep my breath under the water. My mind instantly jumps to fantastical ideas; a siren's song, a calling only I can hear, to lure me deeper and deeper without my breath to keep me afloat.
My train of thought is torn to shreds as I take another mouthful of air and throw my elbows over the edge, stumbling onto the sun-warmed bricks on my stomach. I stand too quickly and stagger to my towel, dizzy and oxygen deprived, slumping into a metal pole for support as I snatch my towel from the grass.
I just stand there for minutes, hours, days trying to reel myself back into my own body, to feel the blood rushing in my ears and the air pumping rapidly through my lungs, more air than I'd gotten anywhere in the last half hour.
"Never again," I mumble, squinting into the too-bright sunlight at everyone else, already milling about; most of them had finished about twenty minutes or so ago. "Never, ever, ever."
How I could waste my new found breath on these words, I didn't know, because I knew they were a lie. I knew that come next week, I'd do the same thing again, and the week after that.
I'd keep doing it until I didn't need to. And then I would breathe enough to last a lifetime.
