I’ve heard this sound in movies. Hell, I guess I’ve heard this before when I was a kid in the damn pool. I would jump in, hit the bottom with my palms and drift back up, trying like mad to keep my ears below the surface to hear the thunks and thuds of the water slapping the pool’s edge. Inevitably, buoyancy would fight gravity and my ear canals would surface. Yeah, so I guess I have heard this sound before.

Air versus water. My ears are getting tired of this.

There is one main difference to the me thirty years ago that is drastic; I’m face-up now to survive while then I was face-down to feel alive.

It’s been minutes since we all had to fall off the edge as she sank below the choppy waves. There is a niggling part in my mind that is bringing up movies again, yelling at me that the pull of the boat is going to take me under. Seconds pass and I’m still afloat so I yell aloud, “Jesus CHRIST, shut up!” My mind quiets but then I hear my bunk mate who is drifting next to me.

“We’re goin’ t’die, ain’t we?”