The Man Who Forgot How to Drown

Marcus stood at the edge of the pool at 5 AM, the way he had every morning for twelve years. The water was still, dark as a mouth waiting to speak. At forty-seven, he'd learned that **running** from your problems only made them faster, stronger, better conditioned. So he swam instead. Lap after lap, until his arms burned and his thoughts dissolved into the rhythm of stroke-breathe-stroke.

The corporate merger had been finalized yesterday. His division—twenty years of his life—gone like that. His boss, a man with the charm of a used car salesman and the ethics of a starving **fox**, had offered him a demotion with a smile. Marcus had walked out.

Now he was swimming again.

The lifeguard, a college kid named Josh who worked the dawn shift, watched him from the chair. "You're here early, Marcus. Everything okay?"

Marcus treaded water, floating in that suspended moment where the world above seemed distant and unimportant. "Just thinking about change."

"Change is good," Josh said. "My dad says if you're not **swimming** forward, you're drowning in place."

Marcus laughed, a short bitter sound. "Your father a philosopher?"

"No, he sells insurance. But he watched his friend get trampled by a **bull** at the rodeo last year. Said life comes at you fast either way."

A rodeo. Marcus pictured it—the dust, the crowd screaming, the man in the arena trying to stay on something that wanted nothing more than to throw him off. That had been him, hadn't it? Holding on for dear life to a job that had stopped meaning anything years ago, riding the **bull** because that's what you did when you were forty-seven with a mortgage and a kid in college.

He climbed out of the pool, water streaming off him like he was being born again. On the locker room bench, his phone buzzed. Sarah. They'd separated six months ago—her choice, she said, because she'd fallen out of love with a **zombie**.

"I saw the news," she said when he answered. "About the merger. Are you okay?"

Marcus stared at himself in the mirror. Wet hair plastered to his skull, eyes that looked older than they should. He thought about the **fox** in the corporate office, smooth and predatory. Thought about the **bull** in the arena, powerful and blind. Thought about the **zombie** he'd become—going through motions, showing up, cashing checks, dying by inches.

"I think so," he said. "Actually, I think I'm finally waking up."

"That's good," Sarah said. "I always liked you better when you were alive."

Marcus sat there for a long time after the call ended. Outside, the sun was coming up. He thought about **running**—really running, not on a treadmill but somewhere unknown. He thought about **swimming** toward something instead of away from everything.

He stood up and didn't put on his suit. Instead, he walked out into the morning in his swim trunks, barefoot on the pavement, alive for the first time in years.