POS 2: Eros, The Elusive Swimmer

Prologue

Asul na asul ang karagatan. Walang makikitang mga isla. Tanging tubig-alat lang kung saan nakalutang siya, lumalangoy, naghahanap ang mga mata niya ng kung ano ngunit hindi niya iyon matukoy.

He kicked his legs, rowing his hands on the blue waters, defying the currents and let the water trailed on his wet skin. He noticed a bad weather brewing kilometers away from where he is in the ocean.

Eros had always been free when he's at the water. He loves ocean which challenging him to cross it, to defy its currents and ride with its waves. It's a wide expanse underneath the clear skies, reflecting its colors on that body of water.

Swimming is his life. His own kind of therapy. Swimming is where he's free from all those things that dragged him down. It washed away the anxiety, the troubles, the past wounds arises from his skin.

The water challenges him in some manners, to inhale its scent, to savor its coldness and ride with it, getting along with it but Eros knew that the waters could be dangerous. 

He swam through the water, found how barren it was underwater, where he can roam everywhere. He kicked his legs and pushed forward his arms and rolled. He could see the light from the sun above the waters. Sure, he could not breathe underwater but at the moment, he didn't care about it as long as he was swimming.

But when he was going deeper and deeper into the ocean. It became dark. The currents were pulling him away to some darker parts of the ocean where he could not swim as he could. As if his arms and feet were suspended. And he could not breathe freely. The water is suffocating him. The lights from his eyes are out and he knew, from the back of his mind. He's drowning.

The sounds of the bad weather. Ang pagbuhos ng ulan sa bubong ng bahay at ang marahas na paghampas ng hangin sa mga puno ang nagpamulat sa mga mata ni Eros. It was a cold and stormy weather yet he was sweating, hands were cold enough which made his face contorted in disbelief and slight of despair in his eyes.

It was a dream turned into a nightmare. Malalim ang paghinga niya nang bumangon at pagmasdan ang pagsaboy ng ulan sa nakasiradong bintana ng kuwarto niya. Walang tigil ang paglagaslas ng patak roon.

Napahilamos sa mukha si Eros, blangkong nakatingin sa kawalan. In that dream, he was being free for a while in the ocean until he was blacked out by it. As if, the ocean didn't want him in it.

He got out of his bed and went through the door leading him to the terrace of his house where it was wet of the downpour.

A stormy weather. If only, it's only the reason of his nightmare. He knew, deep inside. It was not.