It's all yellow. The light piercing into the water is yellow. The water is yellow with the mucked up yellow sand from the bottom, the skin of the bodies is yellow. I am submersed. My head, including my nose, the opening of the viaduct of air, is completely underwater. I see and feel, nothing more. There is no thinking. The brain only wants to send out panic signals to the body to do something. I don't feel the bottom of the river. My arms are flinging against the resistance of the water, reaching for something to grab hold of.
A few minutes ago it was a different set of feelings. Feeling of dread. Dread of going in the water. But also feeling of excitement. Excitement of doing something bad, something dangerous, something my father doesn't know.
Before that was feeling of belonging, that these boys included me, invited me, to go to the river. I don't even know how to swim, but I wanted to be part of their group. I didn't even know who they were, really, just kids from school. I didn't even know there was a group of them, but any group welcoming me made me feel special, whether I knew anything about them or not. It was a hot hot day. People wanted to cool off. The smell of the huge river, one of the biggest in the country, was apparent before I even saw the river. The sun wasn't stingy with its rays of heat. After passing a cluster of bamboo trees, there laid the beach and a quieter part of this huge river. We are downstream from the hydroelectric dam that gives us less than reliable power. I didn't see it or cared to look for it. I was part of a group, at least today. People knew me by my name. I was a special kid, in the end, because their parents respected my father, a teacher, not a peasant like them. So I had this aura that worked against me in ways of integrating. I had my own friends, but many also had educated parents.
The feel of water caressing my toes felt inviting. I was wearing a shirt and a pair of shorts. I took off my sandals, which was what everyone wore back then. I took off my red scarf and put it inside my green canvas bag. Then they started laughing at me. They were all very brown, being peasant boys who spent a lot of days outside. I was much lighter, spending most of my time in school, home, or the road in between that I take everyday between those two abodes. So I didn't tell them I couldn't swim. The laughter would have been even more difficult to take.
I tried looking cool as I walked in the water. The water was moving, and every little movement was scary. The other kids started playing and seemed so at ease in the water, as if they were fish. Some of them started punching water at my way and asked laughingly if I knew how to swim or not, and I didn't answer, just played the game and punched the water back.
The silt beneath my feet started to feel colder and mushier. It was no longer sand, but very fine mud too. The water, as it got higher on my body, felt stronger. The heat of the sun no longer was an issue. Neither was their laughter, their playing in the water, their taunts. My feeling suddenly became focused on the water. On a different part of this river my father and I would go swimming too. But there the water didn't move, hardly. And there was the shade. And there was my father. And I always had a lifesaver. I am not sure why I never learned to swim. Maybe it was because of the lifesaver. Here, the water felt very different. There was no shade, no father, no lifesaver, no still water. It was all abstracted out and reality was flowing around me, tempting me, taunting me, telling me to go further.
And further I went.
Until everything became yellow.
And the sound is different. No more laughter, taunting, just as no more sun, and no more hot skin. It is cold, it is confusing, it is quiet except the sound of muffles, muffled voices, muffled water sound. And there is the feeling of water finally making its way into my nose and further.
I feel suddenly something different. Flesh. Skin. I don't see it. Everything is still all yellow. A yellow mess. But my fingers feel the soft skin. And then they find the limbs, and they clench onto the limbs for dear life. And for a second, my head is for above water. For a second, the familiar returns. There's the blue sky, the unforgiving sun, the sound of the river, of human shouts, of air. And before I am resubmersed, I hear a boy's voice screaming, "Don't pull me down with you!". I can't help it. I am back in the water, still holding to the fleshy anchor no matter what.
Finally, another body lifts me up above water and at some point my feet feel the bottom again. Then I can stand up. Coughing. The taste of the river, of any water, in my breathing ducts, it's horrific. It tastes like death, like the some ooze from the doorway to death. I will never forget that taste. Or the feeling of water, any water, in my nose. That taste, that feeling, always associated with fear. Death. I struggle to walk back onto land, and then I sit down. Two boys come over and ask how I am doing. Obviously fine. Just a few gulp of water. The sun dries my skin just as soon as I get to take a look around. The boys are smiling, starting to laugh too. One seem especially exhausted. I guess he was my anchor that I tried to drown.
It's all blue now. All green. Air, breathable. They return to the water, and I, now dried, stand up and put my clothes back on, shielding my skin from the punishing sun. And I watch them with a heavy heart, but relieved.
