#twdrowning

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Picture yourself in a swimming pool. It’s deep and you’re sinking. And you’re suffocating, you see the lights above the surface of water, you don’t hear anything. You’re not panicking, you’re also not trying to swim up to the surface to breathe at all. You remain still in the depth, feel the bite of the cold water and your ears ringing from the pressure of the water at such a depth. You look up, but you don't swim up.

You begin to wonder, is it worth it to swim up at all? To be blinded by the lights at the surface again? You feel yourself sinking down slowly, no sound, nothing feels. At the bottom of the pool, you’re alone and nobody expects anything of you in return. You exist, simply because the water is letting you and the remaining oxygen in your lungs are letting you. Until, of course, it runs out. But that doesn't strike you as haunting now. You feel strangely comforted by it, the silence, the stillness. It is then, you decide, to not swim up. To sink down to the bottom of the pool and touch the tiled blue floor of it. Your toes touch the tiles, then it is your back, and then the back of your head lightly thumps down against the floor.

You look up, vision blurry. And you feel tired but liberated. Liberated because, finally, no one is telling you to swim up, no one is reasoning or logically trying to make you understand that you must swim up. Liberated because, finally, you don't have to explain to them the reason why you're not swimming up. Maybe there is no reason. Maybe there are a lot. Liberated because, finally, you don't have to think about it- this numbness that engulfs you- and answer someone.

And so, you stay there. Not fighting, not fleeing, just being. You think about how people call it sadness, as if naming it makes it simpler, as if words could describe the kind of tiredness that lives in your bones. You start to wonder where and when did all of this start? You’re not even sure what this is. Through the dotted vision, as you lie on the floor of the pool, you begin to think.

Maybe someone said something wrong? But you weren't the type to be fazed by all of that. Right? Maybe one random Wednesday it all started. After all, Wednesday's child is full of woe. Maybe it was a phase that never ended. Maybe it was one skipped meal that turned into more than just a few. Maybe a snide comment that you brushed past but held it close to your heart forever. Maybe it was the complex that developed growing up. Maybe, maybe, maybe.. At this point, you’re not sure what made this spiral into this. All you do know, however, is that you’re not going to swim up. Not that you have the energy to, anyways.

And so you stay there, somewhere between sinking and floating. It’s not peace, not really. It’s the absence of questions, the pause between breaths, the kind of calm that only exhaustion can bring. And maybe that’s all you need right now. To not constantly be pestered by the ‘why?’ of every question. 

As you lie on the cold floor, with your remaining time, you begin to think again. Of times where people had ever been nice to you. In the deafening silence of the water, you’re able to remember a few names, no faces, or maybe no names, just faces. Were these names and faces real or just a figment of your imagination? Down here, you couldn't tell. 

You recollect how uneasy you felt, almost as if at gun point, when somebody would ask “why, why did this happen? How did this happen? Where did your energy go?”  and how you racked your brain to answer anything, anything. Even if it was a made up response just so the topic would change, it would end. Minimizing it to a busy schedule or small family quarrel.

You begin to wonder if it was your curse to feel everything so deeply, remember everything so vividly. You do wonder that, every second of every day. And lying at the cold floor of the pool, you discern that, yes, you were cursed to feel, and to remember in a world where people don't. 

You feel the oxygen running out, the suffocation now setting in. You still don't panic. After all, weren't you already suffocating when you were above the surface of water? This isn't any different. If anything, this was better. At least, down here, no one is pestering you to breathe against your will. You wonder if you wanted to swim up now, would you be able to? And even if you did, would you be able to breathe when you resurface, or have you forgotten how to?

Somewhere, far above, the light still flickers. You can’t see it clearly anymore, but you know it’s there. a blur, distant, unbothered by whether you reach it or not. And that’s enough to know that it's not worth humiliating yourself again. Not worth putting in the work to be in a better place on surface again. It was humiliating, at best. 

You’re forced to ponder, yet again. Were you blaming others or yourself right now? Did you blame others for being so hardened and not notice you were struggling? oh but they did. They did notice you were struggling. They asked about it too. The only difference was that they'd ask about it and not about you. No regards to how you felt. How they would tell you to get help but never help themselves. Were you blaming them? You wonder that if you did swim up, would it now be for revenge? you wanted to heal for yourself and not for revenge.  

You remember the time when you'd sit by the edge of the pool and think about this exact scenario, being on the bottom of the pool. You did think you'd panic but you don't, right now.

You remember the time when you used to be good at swimming. After all, what is swimming if not not drowning, right? You wonder how you're back at square one. You recall how once before you’d drowned but you were saved. And strangely enough, you don't regret it. Lying on the bottom of the pool, you think, You’re thankful for it for you lived for once. 

Where did your fear go? It’s lying on the bottom of the pool with you. If you swim up, it will swim up with you, only to drag you down when you breathe. You don't swim up because you know what awaits you if you do. So, this time, no. no, you don't deserve it this time. And this time, you let yourself be selfish. 

Selfishness.

You ponder how you’d never been selfish. Is that why you're here right now? How you’d try to mend every problem in the world, even the ones not your own. Especially the ones not your own. 

You feel water in your lungs, and it hurts. It feels heavy, but the pain feels numb. To sum it up, someone would say you're dying. But according to you, you're finally living because you finally sense something. Be it pain, but something. When you hurt for too long, everything hurts but nothing feels. Until you're forced to reflect on what hurts because someone asked you to tell them, like it’s so easy. 

Through hazy understanding, you point to those who have never felt this in their entire lives. And to you, it's puzzling that how can someone be so happy to be untouched by such an emotion? You're puzzled at how people try to estimate how you're feeling, rounding it off to just sad because they have never experienced this desperation, this fear to live.

It all melts down to an end, at the end. And you're thankful you don't have to think anymore because it all feels like nothing now. Except that you feel you’re getting crushed and you're sweating unbearably, though you can't possibly know because you're underwater? 

How could you sweat when you're cold? How could you dare to think of living above the surface when the water made you feel so comfortable? 

You take a deep breath Or, maybe, you don't. Not that it matters now. Finally, you feel grounded. Finally, you feel at peace. For the first time, you take your sight away from the lights over the surface and look around. In the darkness, the walls of the pool, they’re so high- it's daunting. But you don't fear, after all, it lies with you. Accompanying you in your darkest. It was always you, the one was with you when no one was and you’re thankful for it. At the end, you would only give the credit to yourself for surviving or not surviving, because down here, you don't dare to question yourself. You don't deserve to be questioned in your abode.

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And you realise, and internalise that finally, maybe this is where you were meant to be.

if there are any mistakes, please comment and i'll correct them.

[distant music] Tess: We shouldn’t be in here. Levi: You’re the one who wanted to explore-.. what are you, scared of the dark? Tess: ‘Least I’m not scared of water! You’d literally die without it. Levi: [scoffs] Am not. Harry: Why don’t you go for a swim then? Tess: Pfha! Levi: GUYS! Harry: Ohhhh, I hope you didn’t have your phone on you! Tess: You know he did.

Thrashing helplessly amidst the chlorine, Levi once again felt betrayed by his friends-.. only their echoing laughter and cold, waterlogged clothes threatening to drag him beneath the surface met his flailing arms as he cried for help.

Levi: Get me out! Tess: The ladder’s right there, idiot! Just-… Harry: What was that?!

Levi’s panic-stricken brain hadn’t even registered what his friends heard before they hightailed it through the nearest exit, if they’d even heard anything at all. Struggling to maintain his composure, he wished he’d told them he couldn’t swim-.. he’d never quite gathered the courage though, embarrassing as it was. Both the ladder and the ledge were right there indeed, but try as he might, his legs only served to take him in the opposite direction. His eyes stung with hot tears and harsh chemicals as he repeatedly struggled to save himself, but Levi wasn’t even sure which way was up anymore. His limbs were tired now, his lungs burning and his clothes far too heavy for him to stay afloat. Desperate for anyone to hear and despite the water that flooded up his nose and down his throat, Levi gurgled out a helpless yell.

Oscar: What the fuck have you done to her?! Kian: Wha-.. who? Oscar: [scoffs] Where is he-… Never mind. Kian: What’s your problem?

…