Swim Down

"Glass" By: Simon Matulef

Swim Down By: Riley Nee

The hole was an expansive abyss into the ice. It's a perfect, circular shape. Almost somewhat disturbing. The intentionality of it all. Someone had wanted a portal like entrance into the icy depths under. Why? I don’t know. But as I followed the snow trodden footprints into the center of the lake I feared I would soon find out. I knelt next to the hole, watching black water lap at the sides. Specs of red lined the edges. Dark, thick, red. Blood-red. I squeezed my eyes tight. Images flash beneath my eyelids and I know she’s down there. The one I’ve been looking for. I can almost feel her iridescence. I opened my eyes and I could smell the metallic tinge of blood, mixing with the bone-chilling, crisp scent of wind, flurrying around me. With little thought to what I was doing, I slipped off my jacket. Leaving it to slump its brown figure into the ice. I looked once more to the shore. And with that I plunged into the cold dark depths. 

 I almost expected to drown from sheer shock, but I feel as though I am alive for the first time. I swim, pushing my way through the freezing black water. Down further. I pull my hands towards my chest, in perfect slow motion strokes. Taking in the water in glups, I am overcome by second nature. Oxygen fills my lungs with ease, and only when I stop to think do I realize that this makes no sense at all. So I don’t think too much. I’m underwater. But I can breathe. No big deal. 

Then all of a sudden I am staring at the girl. And she is beautiful. Even with her smudged eyeliner, and unwashed hair tumbling down her shoulder, strands drifting away from her as she moves through the water, she is gorgeous. The distant look in her eyes, and bruised knuckles. Her skin, that’s a little too pale, and blood running down her thigh, a thick cut making itself known. The red billowing around her in the water, making a statement. She is absolutely stunning. And she looks a little too much like me. Pieces of her missing, in her glorious, dirty, pain. Striking blue gaze, burning an icy hole through my soul. For some reason I know she would understand. Understand that I bleed the same blood. That I’ve lost pieces of me somewhere along the way as well. Things I’d never tell another soul, I know I’d share with her. We lock eyes and I reach for her, extending my hand. She hesitates, but grasps for my fingertips anyways. A failed attempt for connection, I begin to float away. Please, not yet. Our skin brushes, and then she’s gone. Her siren screams echo through inky waters as I fade from view. My lips part, and water gushes into me, and I can only gurgle as I try to speak. My throat is full of tiny spears who catch my words like fish, hunt them. Stop them in their tracks. Silence falls. It’s impossible to call her back to me. 

I’m alone again, my bones heavy, my blood thick in my veins. Except, was I ever not alone? I’m not really sure she was even here. Piercing through my foggy consciousness are everything I wish I could say. I picture her. Tumbling locks of deep chocolate hair, crooked nose, freckled cheeks. And as I stare at the shard of glass which has appeared in my hand, and hold it up to the fading filtered glimpses from up above, it’s red. My eyes look back at me, reflected against it. A strong blue gaze. Striking, I suppose you could say. The water around me runs red. 

Perhaps I am the girl I’ve been searching for.