The End

She often day dreamed that she was dead. That the rain would fall on her funeral casket, shiny, black and silver, surrounded by solemn black lace and black ties, wet eyes and stark white handkerchiefs. She'd be a ghost daintily wandering, surveying the faces, the tears, the apathy. Of course no one would mourn her, this she knew, even in her morbid daydreams, she was far too forgettable to miss. Now, these images floated around her mind, ebbing and flowing like the pain in her side.

She couldn't swim but she could tread water, just barely. So this she did, until her arms became heavy and her legs could barely move, and the sermon echoed across the lethal glittering sea, "Dearly, beloved..."

How did she get here? She was guzzling water by the gallon at this point, head going under, Neptune's cold embrace already encircling her body, pulling her to his deep, dark, suffocating lair. She gasped for air with aching lungs, salt stung her eyes and her nostrils and she was losing. How did I get here? She couldn't remember, she couldn't remember anything, only that distant echo of a day dream, her body in a hole, faceless bodies lined up above, merging into a dark blur. She coughed, she cried, she thrashed about in one last desperate attempt to hold on to the dismal existence she once knew, that she took for granted. But by now, the panic, the fatigue, had worn her out, and she was letting go, sinking, fingers reaching for the calm blue sky above.The sounds of her struggle slipped away, and she was under, no air, no hope, only a creeping dark abyss. Her heart beat frantically, as if it were trying to push its way out, to be free. This is the end, she realised and then it was all gone, the fear, the silence, the pain, the cold. Her hair billowed out around her head, her body weightless, empty. What now? What was this?

"We're losing her! Come on! One more time! 1, 2, 3,4!" the lifeguard pressed down on her chest, over and over, another one leaned over and pushed his life breath down her throat, she didn't know of course, she was still dead, still enveloped in the nothingness. Unaware, asleep, she looked almost at peace. Bystanders looked on in sheer horror, clutching their colourful towels, covering their mouths with sandy fingers and sunburnt arms. "I saw her, she just walked right in, she didn't stop, she didn't swim, she just walked in until the wave took her," said a young girl, sobbing, traumatised. "The medics are here!" yelled someone else. The lifeguard was losing his cool, giving one last thrust, praying, screaming, begging, please wake up. And just like that she convulsed, coughing and sputtering up the ocean out of her lungs, out of her stomach, her veins, her soul. She inhaled sharply, desperately, she was in the light but it was too bright she could barely open her eyes. She felt someone gently tapping her back as if it would help in coaxing the water out or maybe it was a gesture of comfort. She saw people, faces, colours. She heard clapping, she heard sighs of relief and praises to God. She saw life, still numb from the cold, but she felt the grains of sand beneath her, she felt a towel wrap around her, she felt herself being lifted and set down on a stretcher, and more air from a mask that quickly found its way on her face, she soaked it up, she drank it like ambrosia, she felt tears roll down her face, warm, glorious. How did she get here? Where did she go? She couldn't remember but it didn't matter now.