I am the thing that floats

the creepy little story I tell myself about the swimming pool ghosts

written summer 2021, edited in July 2023. CW: suicide

I am the thing that floats at the bottom of the swimming pool. I am the seconds before lost races and the choices before lost innocence, I am unbroken relay records and lifeguard lovers’ yet-unbroken hearts. 

I am the creature that circles your hairy legs and tickles floating baby feet, swimming up through murky sunscreen-clouded water to brush against your shoulders like a renegade band-aid. My hair is mossy rotting Chlorine blond-green, limp against your sunburnt back. 

When the setting sun creates a glare across the surface of the water I am the thing that makes lifeguards take off their sunglasses and squint, swearing they saw something shimmering along the pool floor. 

I am the voice that calls little children into deep water, promising them they know how to swim. 

I am the sixteen year old lifeguard who drowned herself so August would never end. I’m the sweet summertime haunting who coached your kids and saved your babies and skimmed the pool and then died.

When you’re hungover and heavy with late summer sadness you look out over the water and remember me, and it scares you to realize that I’ve been dead for almost ten years. This year’s lifeguards are the last toddlers I taught how to swim. I should be old enough now to be cracking open a beer besides you. Old enough to have a child of my own. Old enough to haunt some other pool.

Instead I’m still here, still sixteen, drowned but unforgotten. Still swimming through an eternity where summer never ends. 

I am that feeling that you’ve had too much to drink, spent too long in the sun, haven’t started your summer reading. I am that sudden and vague anxiety that time is swirling all around you and life is leaving you behind. Beneath the slow August heat I am the cold undercurrent that reminds you September is coming. Summer was a sticky-sweet, melted-ice cream dream and you’re about to wake up.  

I sing to you the siren song of the past, telling you— the good days are already over.  You were happier. You were younger. You looked better in a bikini. You had a shot at college sports. You were hopeful. You were in love. You had your whole life ahead of you—and now it’s all washed away. The world isn’t what it used to be. Life will never be as good as it was last summer. 

The past was better. 

And if you hold your breath long enough, you can find it again. 

Life moves slower underwater. You can dive beneath the currents of time. Your guilt can be forgotten, your sins can stay unspoken. Your vision dissolves into TV static but as your sight fades to gray you learn how to paddle through eternity, floating through the past forever. 

Isn’t it easy? 

Summer never ends at the bottom of the swimming pool.

Come swim with me.