Just Breathe

He seemed to fall through the tepid night air for an eternity before he entered the cool waters of the sea. Jeremy splashed when he hit the water but he was sure nobody could hear it over the chaos of the party and the noise of the engines. Nobody that was but his brother Ray, and really he was sure Ray didn’t care at all.

To say he and Ray were not friends would have been an understatement. The two of them had been the bitterest of enemies since that night six years earlier when Ray showed up at Jeremy’s house drunk and belligerent. For almost an hour Ray told Jeremy what a bad father and husband he was and compared him repeatedly to their less than admirable parents. Jeremy had finally lost his patience with his little brother and responded in kind by summoning the foulest insults he could imagine and hurling them at his baby brother. If not for Jeremy’s wife’s intervention they would most likely have come to blows that night.

Since then the two of them had only seen one another at family functions. And they never spoke.

His lungs burned hot and his heart hammered. The surface shimmered… so far away.

The only reason they were both on the cruise ship was that they’d both been invited to the family reunion by their beloved grandmother. The same woman who’d more or less raised the two boys in the absence of parents unable to handle the pressure of two children. They were cordial to one another for the sake of their grandma but they had not spoken. The irritation had built up in Jeremy as he watched Ray, the more gregarious and personable of them talking and laughing with the family. Every time he looked over at Ray it seemed that his little brother was watching him.

Lungs ready to burst, he kicked and pulled with all of his might toward the silver moonlight dancing across the water’s surface.

His wife headed to bed an hour before Jeremy took his unscheduled dip in the sea. He’d been too full of pent up energy to follow her and had instead secluded himself at the stern of the ship and watched the starlight dance across the water. He’d been leaning over the rail watching a large fish flipping in the water when, like a child, he lost his footing and plunged into the deep. He was a strong swimmer but he had never been one to brave the liquid depths when intoxicated. The last thing he saw before falling into the water had been Ray watching him from further down the railing.

Fear filled him. He knew he was finished with his descent. His vision dimmed and his strength left him.

Jeremy wondered if this was what two year old Ray experienced that day in the pool. They’d been at their Great Grandparents house and nobody had been watching them as they played in the kiddy pool in the back yard. It was just a shallow pool less than two feet deep. But that was more than enough when little Ray slipped under the water. Jeremy had been stunned, he froze watching the angelic face of Ray just looking at him through the crystal clear water. It’d seemed like hours but it had only been about ten seconds before their grandfather swept in and scooped Ray from the water.

He was so tired now and his chest was on fire. Really he knew that there was no more point in fighting it. He knew that this was his punishment, this was the universe paying him back. Right now he just wanted to sleep, to close his eyes and rest. He stopped kicking and then blew all of the air out of his body. He was surrounded in a corona of bubbles.

He smiled.

Then he breathed.