VerbSap

Underwater

By Shubha Venugopal

The mother stared at the Underwater Scooter poster promising her the ride of her life. Her children had already run into the store; she saw her daughter talking to the man who enticed tourists, saying: You don’t even have to be certified to experience the ocean underwater. The mother thought about escaping, leaving her son and daughter, but where would she go? The resort town was small; they would just find her. Besides, with her husband relinquishing responsibility to play golf, somebody had to stay, had to suffer.

“Mom, check out this video!” her son called when she entered. He stood, mouth open, before a monitor displaying a scene frightening and alien: people bobbing on bubble-shaped scooters balancing clear, hollow globes on their heads.

“See, it works like this,” her daughter, always the expert, explained. “A scooter with air tank attached propels you forward, and the globe helmet lets you breathe underwater without a mask.”

The mother studied the giant-head people rising and sinking, immersed in their blue silence. She tasted bile just watching them. When her son asked, “Isn’t it awesome?” she gave her assent, saying she was indeed filled with awe. Awe-ful, is how she would have described it if anyone but her children had asked.

She shouldn’t have been shocked. It was, after all, a natural progression. First, there had been the horse ride. She’d never been on a horse. Her children, brimming with vacation, insisted it was time she gave it a try. Disdainful of her timid grip, the animal she’d been hoisted on trotted toward surf and listed to the right until she slid off. She sat, legs splayed in foam, wet and mortified. Her children laughed along with tourists; no one noticed her bruised hip. Then: bus ride into hot jungle, body covered in ant bites. And the waterfall hike on which she had sprained her bad foot and got moss-stains on her palms that wouldn’t wash off.

Now, she stood tense and trapped, listening to a man insist she would enjoy the Underwater Scooter ride. Her protests—fear of water, not knowing how to swim, seasickness—her children, as always, brushed aside.

***

On the boat, the mother clung to the wet rail, salt stinging her eyes. She squinted at an unreachable horizon. Water lifted the boat. Her children ran back and forth through spray, searching for a flash of porpoise tail.

The boat stopped and a loudspeaker voice commanded them to disembark. The scooters have been lowered, they were told. Now suit up, climb down, and hold on tight.

The mother didn’t budge; her son pried her aching hands loose from the boat, assuring her it would be fun. Her stomach heaved; her body rocked with waves. She grabbed her daughter’s shoulder, supple and sun-warmed, for support.

She paused on the lowered ladder, her children waiting below in the cold. She nearly turned back. She looked out at shirred and undulating water, telling herself: Focus on one spot. Don’t let your eyes move. Keep down your lunch. She tried, but couldn’t find, a safe place to rest her eyes.

At the base of the ladder, she climbed onto the scooter and donned the giant globe, an unwilling aquanaut. She had ridden a scooter once as a child, had enjoyed the breeze, the freedom of flight. This time, her scooter sank.

The water around her was deep and blue, its vastness making her gasp. She resisted vertigo, started to feel sick. Her skin looked gray. She didn’t recognize herself from the neck down. She heard a roaring in her ears, realized it was her own blood. She searched—saw nothing above, nothing below, but herself, weightless and lost.

Then she found her children. She watched them materialize in a blur of blue. She saw their mouths move in their vacuum-domes, but heard only popping, gurgling sounds. Seen through her globe, they were transformed— miniaturized and strangely quiet. How small they look, she thought, surprised. How thin-limbed and fragile. She wanted to hold them like she would a sick bird so their bones wouldn’t snap in her grasp. She wanted to draw them—infants again and without defense—back to her ready breast.

They zigzagged in slow motion, swaying in currents, as fish swam past their wide eyes. Her children: beautiful, ethereal, caught in swirls of color. Reflected iridescence from silvered fish rippled their skins with light. The mother drew in her breath; she felt her chest crushed, as if from water pressure. Underwater, her children seemed far away, yet she had never been closer.

***

On the boat, her son said to her daughter: That kind of sucked. He said: I can’t believe Mom did that with us. Her daughter said: That stupid dome de-magnified the fish and made everything look smaller. What a rip.

They turned toward her. Mom? What did you think?

The mother said, acting stern: Do you know what you guys put me through? Then, after silence, she said with a laugh: The most amazing ride—this life.

Shubha Venugopal is currently completing her MFA in fiction at Bennington College. She also holds a Ph.D. in English and will soon be a professor at California State University, Northridge. She lives with her husband and two beautiful children—a toddler daughter and infant son. Her writing will appear or has appeared in Post Road, Flashquake, Gambara, Antithesis Common, The Angler, Literary Mama, Elimae, Eclectica, Boston Literary Magazine, Mslexia, Kalliope, and Women Writers: A Zine.

Photo "Bolhas," courtesy of Luis Gustavo Lucena, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Home | Top