Last Swim | Bobby Matzuka

BOBBY MATZUKA

The sensations of it are really unparalleled. There you are, almost eleven years old, walking alongside your sisters, one older and one younger. You feel a bit out of place, ducking through the halls of the hotel in your swim trunks. Still, your smile beams like it never will again. Your eyes blink a bit more than they usually do, but it doesn’t matter how tired you are. This is something you have to do. You can see it when you turn the corner, through a big glass wall. The water shimmers with an unnatural candy-blue reflection of the pool floor. White tiles surround the rims of it, and a collection of empty wooden chairs waits for you. You and your sisters are excited to see that no one else is in there. The place becomes all the more magical when you have it to yourself. And why shouldn’t you have it to yourself, here at seven o’clock in the morning? The glass door feels heavy, like it was vacuum-sealed shut. Your bare feet, just a moment ago squishing and sinking with every step into the carpet of the hotel halls, slap against the tiles. Right as you walk in, you say something just to hear the echo. You have no shame about it, so you shout “woohoo!” or something like that. Your older sister, more covert in her indulgence, asks you to grab some towels in a voice just loud enough to produce an echo. The only thing that could be more compelling than the acoustics is the smell. A sharp, humid scent of chlorine hangs in the air. It wouldn’t be so exciting if you had smelled it in your kitchen, or in your bathroom. But since you’re here, it’s the greatest smell in the world. On one of the chairs, you set down your things: the keycard that will let you back into your room, the towels you collected, and the quarter you brought along, in case you want to flip it into the depths and dive in search of where it lands. You try to step in from the stairs of the pool, but as your foot breaks the plane of water, it feels like ice has collected around it. You retreat back up the steps with a new plan. Mom and Dad always told you that the only

way to adjust to cold water is to dive in and fully submerge. Your walk to the deep end is more of a strut. You back up, a few feet from the edge. You make sure to wave to your sisters. Everyone has to see this. You take a deep breath. You run for one or two strides. You leap. You tuck your legs to your chest. You close your eyes. And can I even describe what you feel next? The way that the world goes so quiet, the echoes reduced to murmurs. The way the cold surrounds your body, and then flees in an instant. The water that rushes through your nostrils and stings your eyes open enough to see a murky vision, a blur of blue bliss. Was that the lightest you ever felt, there in the bottom of the pool? You bounce back up, inhale sharply, and throw a triumphant hand in the air. Your sisters holler as the waves buckle back around you. Everything is euphoria for now. For the first hour or so, you and your sisters play games. You chase each other, race each other, tackle each other. You play Marco Polo, and you find the quarter so many times that the bottom of the pool looks strange to you if there isn’t a glimmer of silver on it somewhere. But after a while, you split up, floating to opposite ends of the pool. Because you remember something. That Mom and Dad are packing up your hotel room. That they’re looking under the beds for toys you may have left behind. That all of your outfits, except for the one you’ll wear on the trip home and the bathing suit you wear now, are being stuffed in a suitcase. It isn’t necessarily a terrible feeling to remember this, because you had your fun over the last few days. But the somber sense that crawls through your chest is inescapable. The sense that this is your last swim of the year. So you think to yourself: what am I going to miss? You’re going to miss feeling so light, so buoyant, so you dive deep under the water and tumble and flip and do handstands, all of the things you can’t do once you leave this place for the year and go back home.

At one point, you lay back, submerging yourself. You keep your eyes open, and watch the barrier between water and the air above. It waves and glistens with clashes of blue and the bright white-yellow of the lights above. You feel, in some strange way, that you’re watching your life up there. It’s

all so hazy ahead, but at least it’s quiet in the depths.

You watch for so long that a pinch develops in your lungs.

You stand, take a deep breath of the chlorinated air, and wonder what else about this place you will miss.

But it’s too late. Your parents are opening the heavy glass door so that they can come in and tell you that it’s time to go. You have to dry off and get back to the room so you can get dressed to leave. You have to prepare for the trip back home.

You have to wonder when your next last swim will be.