water

She grew up around water. Never having lived more than a few minutes from the seashore, the ocean was the place she felt the most at ease. As though the rhythm of the tide could wash away any troubles she had, pulling them out into the clear blue with each crested wave. She could swim before she could walk - that's what they said. She paddled around the pool like a playful otter when she was little and then sleek and swift like a dolphin as she got older. Nothing gave her more comfort than being immersed in the cold water of that bay - her bay - so cold it hurt sometimes, making her skin tingle into numbness and her teeth chatter through her blue lips.

So it was ironic, you see, that this was how she would die. That the liquid she could sink into for hours on end had somehow turned against her. As the fluid accumulated in her lungs she tried to comfort herself with the idea that drowning should be an ideal way to go for someone who spent so much time in the water; it should be comforting somehow.

But it wasn't supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be floating, swimming, smelling salt air. Her lungs were not supposed to be filling with fluid here, in this dry room as she lay in this bed, the machines trying to force air into her lungs. She wasn't supposed to feel herself becoming less and less able to breath. If she had to drown, and that's what was happening, why couldn't it be out there in the ocean, floating.

And suddenly she found herself there. The cool water surrounded her as she felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She smiled as she settled onto her back floating and then sinking. And as the water closed over her head she was no longer afraid. This was home.

The people clustered around the bed wondered at the sudden peace on her face as she breathed her last shallow breathes and then breathed no more.