Horror D’oeuvre #12
Swimming Lessons
by Tim Waggoner
© 2007 by Tim Waggoner
All Rights Reserved.
The humidity was so thick, you could take a bite out of the air and chew. Scott sat on the hard plastic bleachers in the front row, close to the rec center’s pool, trying to ignore the dull ache in his lower back and wishing he had a more comfortable place to sit. Getting old, he thought.
Kelsey was at the far end of the pool with the rest of her class, holding onto the edge of the pool for support as she bobbed up and down in unison with the other kids. Scott supposed there was some point to the exercise, but it looked like all they were doing was learning to play Marco Polo.
The pool was filled with children of varying ages, from toddlers to middle-schoolers. At seven, Kelsey fell somewhere in between. The kids’ parents filled the bleachers, sitting hunched over, probably feeling the same ache in their lower backs as Scott did, their faces covered with slick sheens of sweat. Some talked listlessly on cell phones, some stared at open books with expressions of mild disinterest, and others chatted without energy or enthusiasm. They all looked as tired as Scott felt.
He was here alone. Carley had to work this morning, even though it was a Saturday. She scheduled all their daughter’s activities and chauffeured Kelsey to them, often alone—something of a sore point between them. One of many these days.
Scott wiped sweat from his forehead and watched his daughter swim. The kids in her class were now lying on their backs in the water, holding onto yellow foam boards and kicking their legs with frog-like motions as they swam backward.
He sighed, and the sound was echoed by the parents around him. Sweat was dripping off of them now as if it were the height of August instead of early March.
Scott wondered for perhaps the twentieth time that morning why Carley had felt it necessary to go into the office today. Sure, they had an ever-growing mountain of bills to pay, but things weren’t that desperate. She’d gone in last Saturday, too. He wondered if she were having an affair, wondered if he really cared. He wished he were having an affair, wished he were having something.
He let out a deeper sigh this time, this one echoed just as deeply by the other bleacher-parents.
Kelsey laughed as she finally reached the other side of the pool, and her teacher praised her determination.
Scott wished he felt as carefree, that a simple word or two of praise could delight him so easily. Had it ever? he wondered. He couldn’t remember.
Sweat ran down his chest and back, soaking his clothes. Rivulets trickled down his legs, past his ankles, began pooling around his shoes. The acrid smell of chlorine seared his nasal passages, and he told himself that it was the pool water he smelled, nothing else. More puddles formed at the feet of the other parents and chlorine-scented sweat ran down the bleachers in widening streams.
So many worries…unsatisfying marriages, soul-grinding jobs, perpetual bills, noncommittal lovers, inadequacies both real and imagined, unfulfilled dreams, diminished expectations…
Scott glanced at the thermometer mounted on the wall. Ninety-two degrees. God, it was stifling in here! The pool water looked so cool, so calm, so inviting…
So free.
He heard Kelsey’s laughter as he reached up to smear away more sweat. His fingers sank into the wet flesh of his forehead, but he felt no pain. As if the action broke the surface tension of his body, Scott’s form shuddered and collapsed into water. He felt a surge of a half-remembered emotion that he thought might have been happiness as his liquid substance splashed his seat, flowed onto the floor, and slid toward the edge of the pool. He was joined by the others, and their watery substances merged, flowed into the pool, and together they lost themselves in joyous oblivion.
Their children continued to swim and splash, not noticing that the bleachers were empty, laughing as they slurped in water and spit great mouthfuls of their parents at each other.
Comment by SLIM on 16 May 2007:
Freaky Cool, But now the poor kid has to walk home.
Comment by emptyg on 16 May 2007:
More brilliantly-realized surrealsim from the writer who’s yet to let me down!
–Gary Braunbeck
Comment by kresby on 16 May 2007:
wow - didn’t see that coming. Quite surreal and fun…for some reason I giggled at the ending.
Comment by ttzuma on 20 May 2007:
More short stories should read like this! There’s not a lot of time consuming exposition and it ends with a punch.
Here’s hoping that Tim gets reupped at Leisure and continues to write horror for years to come.
ttzuma
Comment by leftoverjoe on 20 May 2007:
Very cool story. I like going from the emotions everyone feels at some point or another, and making that subtle twist…nice!
Comment by Huge_Horror_Fan on 24 May 2007:
Tim Waggoner has never disappointed me yet. I have read all his Leisure novels, but this was the first short story that I had the pleasure to read by him. It is great to discover that he is just as talented in short form as he is with his longer work.
Thank you, Tim!