Drowning in Shallow Water

Mara sat on her back porch, nursing a third glass of chardonnay while watching her neighbor's abandoned **pool** collect rain. The tarp had partially blown off last week, revealing greenish water that seemed to mock her own stagnant life. At forty-two, she'd thought she'd have it figured out by now – the marriage, the career, the house with the white picket fence. Instead, she'd discovered Richard's emails three mornings ago, and now everything was crumbling.

The patio table held a sliced **papaya** Richard had brought home yesterday, still trying to pretend nothing had changed. Its orange flesh sat exposed to the air, slowly oxidizing like her marriage had been – rotting from the inside while she'd been too busy with her freelance graphic design work to notice.

"And in other news, local authorities report..." The **cable** news droned on through the open patio door, filling the silence she couldn't bear. She'd stopped listening hours ago. Maybe if she kept the noise loud enough, she wouldn't have to think about whether to confront him or just pack her bags.

A small, mangy **dog** trotted along the fence line, stopping to sniff at a cluster of overgrown hydrangeas. It looked up at her with one clouded eye, ribs visible through patchy fur, before continuing its solitary journey. Mara watched it go, wondering if it had somewhere to be or someone waiting, or if it was just wandering like she felt.

She took a sip of wine, studying the pool's dark surface again. Something about its depthlessness called to her – not the suicidal kind, but the quiet kind. The kind where you could just slip beneath something and let the world go silent for a while. Not forever. Just long enough to remember who you were before everyone told you who you should be.

The dog barked somewhere in the distance, a lonely, defiant sound. Mara reached for the papaya, ate a piece that was beginning to brown, and surprisingly, it tasted sweeter than she expected. The kind of sweet that only comes when things are starting to turn.