Zack Anderson fell through his bed. He grabbed for his pillow, but the pillow was gone. Instead there was only water above him below him around him in his mouth in his throat in his lungs.
He was in the pond again, sinking and rising.
Mommy, he thought, hurry, Mom.
For an instant Zack saw the sky. Between him and the willow tree, between him and the shore Jacob stood looking down. Jacob screamed at the water.
Zack breathed out, and before he could breathe in again he went down. Jacob was still screaming, but it sounded swooshy, the way things sounded when Zack was in the tub with his ears in the water.
The screaming faded as Zack sank.
Mom would save him. She had saved him before. If only he could stay near the top of the water so she could see him.
He flapped his arms, trying to control them. He didn’t know how to move them right, but maybe he could figure it out.
He needed to go up, to climb. Could he climb up the water?
He tried to grasp a fistfull of water and pull himself up, but it didn’t work.
But it did too work, a little, and then he was sinking again.
Climb!
He grabbed more fistfulls of water, faster and faster.
He wasn’t going to make it to the top. Where was Mommy? Was Jacob coming? That would be bad, because Jacob didn’t know how to swim, either.
But he knew how to row the boat. The boat! If Jacob could bring the boat Zack could grab onto it.
Zack climbed and climbed, but he didn’t know if he was going up. But the water was lighter and clearer and Zack could breathe.
But he knew he only had a second before he would go down again. “The boat,” he said, but it was too weak, not loud enough. Again! “The boat!”
But Jacob was looking the wrong way, toward Mom.
And Mom was laying on the ground. She looked around toward Zack, but she wasn’t coming. What was she doing? Why wasn’t she coming?
Zack opened his mouth to call to her, and he went down.
Climb! You have to climb. They’re not coming. You have to climb!
But he wasn’t climbing, he was sinking.
The dropoff! he thought. Maybe he could walk up the dropoff. If it wasn’t too steep and wasn’t too slippery, maybe he could walk up the dropoff.
He didn’t know how to move forward, toward the shore, toward the dropoff.
Sinking.
If he could get to the bottom, he could walk to the dropoff. Then he could walk up.
He let himself sink down. The fall took longer than he expected and he was having a hard time holding his breath.
When he hit, the bottom of the pond was soft and mushy. His feet sank into the mud and his legs twisted underneath him. He lost his balance and fell to his left. His arm plunged into the muck up to his elbow.
He tried to pull his arm out of the mud, but the weight of his body packed his hand further down. It felt solid down there, but his arm was in mud beyond his elbow and he couldn’t push upward.
He was going to have to breathe soon, but he was a long way down, and he was stuck.
He spread the fingers of his right hand and pressed little by little onto the muck at the bottom of the pond. He pressed harder and tried to pull his left hand out. His right hand suddenly smooched into the mud.
He pulled and his right hand popped out of the mud with a thick “bloot” sound.
He was going to have to breathe soon. Really really soon.
He twisted his hips and felt his right foot move slightly in the much. He twisted again and it moved again. He couldn’t tell if it was coming loose or not. He twisted his body back and forth.
His muscles started to ache. His lungs felt as if someone had stuffing and enormous soft warm blanket into them. the blanket was overflowing his lungs, but it kept pushing.
I’m stuck, Zack thought. Mom, you better come soon.
He couldn’t hold his breath any more. He opened his mouth and his breath rushed out in a huge bubble.
He breathed in and the water was cold. Sometimes he dreamed that he could breathe water. The water in his dreams was always cool, refreshing. That’s what the water in the pond felt like.
It feels nice, he thought. I’ll just stay here.
The pain in his muscles flowed away into the water and he felt very light, as if he were floating lazily through the air, just like in the dreams where he could fly. His arms felt light and his legs felt light and his chest felt cool and light and nice.
It’s nice here, Zack thought, and the words floated away into a beautiful beautiful feeling and the feeling floated away.
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