The Art of Not Drowning

The morning always began with the same ritual. The vitamin C tablet sat on my tongue—bright orange, artificially flavored, a promise of wellness I'd stopped believing in months ago. I swallowed it dry, feeling it scrape down my throat like a tiny stone of defiance against whatever was slowly killing me from the inside.

Running came next. Six miles along the river, my feet pounding pavement in a rhythm that matched the hollow beat of my heart. The morning mist clung to the water like something undecided—neither fog nor smoke, just there, suspended. I ran until my lungs burned, until the physical pain momentarily eclipsed the other kind, the one that lived in my chest and refused to leave.

The pool was different. Swimming was the only time I felt weightless, the only gravity that released its grip. Slicing through cool blue silence, I became nothing but motion, each stroke a small rebellion against the numbness that had become my baseline. Between breaths, suspended in that crystalline moment before surfacing, I could almost convince myself that I was still alive.

But then came work, and the transformation was complete. Moving through meetings and cubicles like something undead—present but not there, responding to questions with practiced professionalism while something inside screamed and something else remained utterly silent. My colleagues moved with purpose, passion, lives I could no longer remember how to inhabit. I watched them like a ghost haunting its own former life.

Sarah stopped by my desk around three. "You look tired, Mark."

I almost laughed. I wasn't tired. I was something worse.

"Just swimming before work," I said. "Training for a triathlon."

The lie was automatic, effortless. Another layer of the performance.

"That's amazing! You're so disciplined."

She meant it as a compliment. It felt like an accusation.

Tonight, I'll do it again. Another vitamin, another run, another length of pool. Each one desperate attempt to prove I'm still here, still capable of feeling something, anything beyond this comfortable suffocation. Some days I think I'm running toward something. Most days I know I'm just running away from the realization that whatever made me human has already left the building.

And I'm just the zombie it left behind, practicing the art of not drowning.