The Water Wants Me

I was born on the laundry room floor. Mom's water broke when she was shifting a load of whites from the washer to the dryer and out popped my head. My first conscious memory is seeing amniotic fluid running down through the flood drain and hearing my water mingle with the world's. Now, I don't know if it was fear of my preternatural awareness or what but when I fell all the way out while Mom was bending down to put in the dryer sheets I heard the water cheer my impending death. And I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this if I hadn't landed in a basket of Dad's crotch stained underwear. The stink was stupefying, I cried and Mom realized I was out. Ever since that day, the water has wanted me and I always smell-test my gonch.

I went a couple of years thinking that I'd been the only one to hear that gurgling cheer from the drain but Mom must have heard it to and it stuck in her head. She was always trying to give the water what it wanted. Closing my eyes, I can see Dad pulling her away through a rippling film as I roll over from where she's held me down in the sink. I can hear my brother crying as she tries to force my head under during a mutual bath, "Don't cry, the water only wants Air." And through it all the water calls to me in a flowing liquid tongue that promises peace like in the beginning when the world was without form and void and darkness shone on its face.

No, this isn't about Mom, it's about the water. But she was the one who signed me up for swimming lessons and told me the lifeguards were water priestesses who did what it said all the time. She was the one who'd watch from the gallery waiting for the moment when I went under when she could start into histrionics and wail that the water took her boy. Bah, I used water-wings until the priestess-instructors made me stop but soon mastered the art of controlled drowning that some call swimming. When it came to the point where I actually looked forward to my lessons Mom knew I was beyond her reach and left the water to its own devices.

There have been many attempts since those days. The water has sent itself in rain to swamp me under while canoeing across Algonquin Park. It has tipped me into itself with rapid hands and held me under while exerting hundreds of pounds pressure. Always there's been someone to prevent my dying, always I walk away to make my own water in each offending body. The water doesn't like that, no indeed, and it has since found a much more insidious way to achieve its goal.

Water now acts as the vehicle for alcohol and oh what joy it must have felt when I finally turned my back on the god that kept me from drinking. It's grown patience and knows that eventually I will imbibe too much and meet my end through accident or self abuse. I can still hear it when I'm in my cups but faintly, like someone calling me from a long time ago. The water waits and I wait hoping that the world will end in fire and so deny it forever.