You know when you’ve done something stupid and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry? That’s how I felt when the water smashed into my face. Also, once I’d calmed down enough to work out which direction the surface was in, a Tweet popped into my head. Really cocked up this time. LOL #GonnaDie.
I guess I was so used to crap happening to me that ending up completely under water with no idea of where I was, didn’t seem so bad. You have to laugh or you go mad.
My lungs screamed at me and although my arms worked frantically, they didn’t seem to be getting me very far. The joke was over, anyway; it was no longer funny. I really was gonna die if I didn’t get air soon.
So, blue sky above me. Promising. Just keep swimming. When I broke the surface I had enough time to suck in a breath before my head went under again. I panicked, flailed a lot – probably looked like an idiot to anybody watching – then my hand touched something soft and I realised I’d reached the bank and there was grass and earth and oh! Life. I was alive.
Yay. I dragged my half-drowned self up onto the bank and coughed until I vomited water. Exhausted, I rolled over onto my back and lay there, soaked and shivering and staring at the sky which, now I looked properly, was more of a weird green colour. Tourmaline. The word popped into my head suddenly. Tourmaline sky. A poet would have a field day.
