Have you ever swum in the ocean?

Slipping beneath the surface, water slides past skin like a whisper just loud enough to tether you in space. Allowing that initial startling cold to later soothe, deceptively warming you from the inside out. Like ice cubes shrinking and sinking in a glass of tea on a hot summer’s day, the entire drink diluted in a matter of minutes. 

Have you ever opened your eyes underwater? 

It stings, the pain like faraway sirens, signaling to the body that this is not what it’s meant for. But the girl persists, not so much looking as taking in the hazy vision before her, trapping the sight in her mind like a fly preserved in amber. Deep blue-green surrounds her everywhere; shadows and light take turns reflecting and deflecting to make their presence known. 

The girl keeps her eyes open for as long as she can. She holds her breath for 30 seconds, 60, 90, clutching those unraveling threads that too easily slip through her fingers. It’s as if, through sheer will, she could stay in this world for just a little while longer. Such beauty is no accident, but it is almost always ephemeral. The panorama breaks, her lungs give out and she lifts her head up, gasping and blinking furiously. 

If she looks back, there’s the rest of civilization. Her mother, with her sunglasses, lying under the shade of a coconut tree, one arm resting across her stomach and the other limply gripping a giant tube of sunblock she’d brought along. Just in case. Her sister, trying — and failing — to build a sandcastle.  Those fine, coarse grains with no staying power. Her father, walking back and forth beside her mother, jabbering on his phone to another client of his. No, Manny, it’s page fifteen, not seventeen. Look at the fine print. Her grandmother with her sharp eyes fixed on the top of the dark-haired girl’s head bobbing up and down in the water, even from this distance. She waves once she sees the girl finally turn back.

“Don’t go out too far!” 

“Okay!” 

The girl stops treading water and instead leans her head back. She places her arms on either side of her body and pushes downward with enough force to bring her legs up, slowly, like a loaf of bread rising in the oven. She loves this position. Face tilted up, back almost flat against the surface. The lapping waves a lullaby of its own, a gentle caress. Salt air tickling her nose. At this moment, it’s easy to imagine that this is it; she’s reached the end, right in the center of the universe, where the edge of the sky meets the corners of the sea. 

She stays still for several beats, caught for a moment between desires unfulfilled and desires unvoiced. Gradually sinking lower and lower, before her arms and legs finally kick into motion and she reluctantly swims back to shore.