Short-story

The phone wakes her up with a dull, irritating chime. She waits a few minutes before turning on the light. Her feet find the cold floor. She walks to the bathroom. She splashes water on her face. In the mirror she sees a tired face. Fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Dry lips. A crumpled copy of Forbes lies in the bidet. Her face is on the cover. She closes her eyes. Opens them. Closes them again. Stella slips into the pool without hesitation. She glides down the center lane, her strokes falling into rhythm, her breathing steady, her head turning and lifting in one continuous motion. As always, she is the first to arrive, exactly at six-thirty. It is still dark outside. The pool is hers alone. Beyond the tall glass windows, the parking lot is almost empty beneath the harsh white floodlights. More than three feet of snow fell during the night. Maybe it slowed the world’s awakening. Maybe she’ll have the place to herself a little longer. After the tenth lap her breathing settles. After the twentieth her thoughts begin to slow. After the thirtieth Stella becomes transparent. She turns to glass. Nothing stays with her anymore. Everything slips away like the water moving around her body. She hasn’t broken this ritual in months. She never stops before reaching one hundred. It is her way of taking complete control of her body again. And her body obeys. Pliable. Elastic. Powerful.
By lap forty-two she is still alone. The lifeguard is absorbed by his phone. He doesn’t notice Stella disappearing beneath the almost motionless surface of the pool. He doesn’t see her sinking, slowly, toward the bottom, toward the small pale-blue tiles. She slips into an opening in the rock. Ahead is a long, narrow, winding passage. The walls give off a faint blue glow, as if showing her the way. She moves through tunnels that seem to welcome her, surround her, guide her. On the other side is the sea. She is no longer inside a concrete pool filled with water. She swims freely through a living ocean, full of fish, seaweed, shells, drifting sand, icy or warm as blood currents. She breaks the surface beneath a blinding sun beside a long stretch of powder-pink sand. She walks into a dense forest of trees, shrubs and wild grasses. The farther she goes, the more the sharp, sweet smell of vegetation awakens her. A small cluster of violets beneath the trunk of a great oak catches her eye. There are no other flowers. Only green. She kneels beside that deep violet. She presses her open hands into the cool grass, closes her eyes and imagines pouring that strange color across the landscape like buckets of paint. She wants only that exact shade of violet scattered over the green. She opens her eyes. Sage. Lavender. Alliums. Clematis. Wisteria. Agapanthus. Irises. Lilacs. The forest, the clearings, the hollows and the streams are washed in the color of amethyst. They shine. The lifeguard finally looks up from his phone. He watches Stella climb out of the pool and walk toward the locker room. Then his vacant eyes drop back to the screen and his thumb resumes its endless scrolling. The pool is empty. Stella’s SUV struggles up the long driveway to the house. The garage door slides open and lets it in. She steps out of the car. Her foot catches on something. She falls forward into the darkness with the full weight of her body. The impact against the concrete is hard. Sudden. Unpleasant. She switches on the light and sees long scratches running down her arms. She climbs the stairs into the house. The green ceramic tiles of the large living room glow faintly beneath the lamp Stella always leaves on. The house is a mess. Papers scattered across the table beside her laptop. Two half-packed suitcases abandoned on the couch. Glasses. Plates. Bottles. And the plants. The enormous Monstera deliciosa. The Kentia. The Cycas revoluta. Two ficus trees. Two pothos. Forgotten. Abandoned. Dry. Stella walks into the kitchen. She fills a stainless-steel mixing bowl with water and places it beside the plants. She kneels and lowers her hands into the freezing water. She remains perfectly still for what feels like forever, her hands growing more and more numb, until the sun sets and, many hours later, rises again. When she finally stands, exhausted, the room is filled with a cold, brilliant light. The leaves are green. The branches are whole. The soil is damp. Stella looks at them. She closes her eyes. Opens them. Closes them again.
She breathes.