2 2 T H E T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W 2 0 2 3 His heartbeat seemed to crash through his head, pulsing, deafening. He could almost hear his bones creak, as if the weight of the water was crushing him. Breaking him. There was no bottom to the fall, no sides. He could tell where the sand gave way, but he couldn’t trace the side or observe that the abyss had anything but a beginning—that it ever stopped. If it never stopped, would the water just keep falling? Would it ever compress and reach pressures strong enough to crumple metal like paper, or would it even out, stuck in slow freefall. Could he just swim down, and keep swimming, endlessly, in the chill deep, and never return? Keep going, and swim deeper? How long he hung there he didn’t know, only that eventually, with a sharp jolt, he glanced away. The pulse faded, the creaking strain rising in intensity—a weight, seeking to pull him down. He focused his gaze instead at the sand below his feet, counting every grain and searching its shape and ebb and flow. Even if he did want to keep going and swim deeper, he’d run out of air. He’d suffocate, he’d die. Using the ocean floor for orientation, he turned around, facing the surface, searching for any hint of light. He found none, and made them in his mind instead. He saw them pierce down and illuminate the water around him, showing only more rippled sand, rock, and the rare oddity. There was nothing here. He should swim back up. Keep going. Swim deeper. Against all of his instincts, a pervasive wrongness overcoming his actions, he swam up, following the imaginary rays until they were joined by the light of the true sun. The light pierced through the water as he surfaced and left it behind, shining fiercely enough to display the ocean’s shallow, unbroken floor. Author Information: Not provided.
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