You can’t breathe when you’re underwater. You can’t hear when you’re underwater. You can’t talk when you’re underwater, as if there were anyone to hear the words you can’t speak. The lines of the water from the rays of the sun only disorient you further. A wave can be seen from the wrinkle of light, perhaps there are people above looking for the one below. The waves disperse as time passes, and impatience sets in. Not the impatience of waiting for one above, but the impatience of dying from the one below. It takes too long it seems. Time slows down when you stop to leave your breath hanging.

A discomforting feeling is felt in the lungs as the reflex of breath sets in. Drowning was never the scary part about the experience, but the lonely, empty blue that can be seen from all angles. The calm blue setting is as soothing as it is frightening. The surface is even more frightening, it being too far away to reach, and too close not to see. Even the fish have left to create a fitting setting to a lonely man at the bottom of the sea.

A light daze sets in soon after the realization of death becomes apparent. To think the blue water represents most of the life the man has led is more than just ironic, it’s sad. Sad to think the empty water can see the man for what he is, floating there helplessly at the bottom of the sea. It can see how empty he is as it passes through him. It can hear the voices in his head calling out for help. It knows what he regrets most as it consumes his lungs.

What the water doesn’t know is what the man can only think about as the daze slowly increases. He thinks of her, the one he’s loved all his life. He saw her every day since he can remember, and that remembrance only grew with every passing second. From the color of her blonde hair to the shape of her hourglass figure, and red shoes that she never changed; as far as he knew, she was the only girl in the world who had only one pair of shoes. Her laugh, her smile, her glow when the sun through the window hit her in the morning was the little things he’d wished he had taken more time to examine. The picture of her in his mind got fainter with every passing moment as his thoughts tried to stay alert.

It was coming down to it when the man regretted the very thing he had remembered. The thoughts of her irritated him. He wished he would pass away sooner so the pain would go away, physically as well. There were things he could not remember of her that frustrated him most. The drowning man could not remember any specific conversation or a lasting memory with her. What was worst of all was he couldn’t think of her name. He was sure he had said it, or heard it before but now could only think of her image. An image he’d seen every day of his adult life. Closing his eyes tears dropped from his face though the surrounding water didn’t take notice. He never really knew her aside from a distant look from across the room in his local bar. He could see himself there, guzzling down another beer, drowning in his own insecurity, unable to gather the courage to speak to her.

He began to smile through it all though. He smiled at the life he never had, at the memories he couldn’t develop, at the blue sea before him, and at the plunge he was glad he took.