Busy Doin' Nothin'

Automatic for the People | October 1, 2008

I took my kids to a swimming pool (Beatty Park, if you MUST know) this morning.  It was very busy, and I spent half the time having fun with the children, and the other half hoping that the annoying red headed twins that kept leaping into the even more shallow than shallow pool would suffer life altering spinal injuries whilst their grinning idiot of a parent was trading cookie recepies with a woman that closely resembled a hobbit (but hairier).

The proximity to water must have reminded me of a few near death experiences, as I found myself thinking back to the two times in my life where I nearly drowned.  It wasn’t the fact that I nearly died that caught my interest, though.  It was the experience of remembering that fascinated me.  Like in an Alan Moore comic, I was there for a few brief seconds, reliving an unpleasant part of what sadly passes for my life.

The second time, I was caught in a rip, whilst swimming happily out into the ocean when I knew I couldn’t.  I was just too embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t swim that well, it was easier to just swim out there with the rest of my class.  When I got into trouble, most of the other swimmers had made it back to the beach.  I didn’t yell, I just knew that I couldn’t make it back, and quite calmly (or so I remember), I started to drop below the water and begin to drown.

My life flashed before my eyes, but there was no revelation.  It was the good with the bad, just there.  No particular order, just a quick succession of images dating back, I believe as far back as my memory extended.  It was then that my body involuntarily started to struggle, as my lungs desperately searched for air.  I thrashed about, for what seemed like far too long, as I pushed myself up to the surface for a few minute gasps of air.  It didn’t seem like much, but it was enough to last me until the high school phys-ed teacher (that resembled Paul Hogan crossed with Les Patterson) came to my rescue.  I remember being momentarily disappointed, because my life had stopped flashing, I was going to live, and I would never, ever even remotely like the ocean again.

And I can almost hear you all going ‘phew, thank god he made it’.

No morals, no point, just because.