THE LAST EDITORIAL
_The fingers close. Pull at the water. Kick. The arms reach. Pull at the water. The hands stretch. How long has it been? When did I enter? What compelled me from shore?
The horizon remains a constant, an image of a line between sky and water and I am constantly approaching the horizon swimming forward to the point.
Sometimes I lift my head, float, enjoy the sun’s slow set. Another stroke toward the painted distance. Pull at the water.
Far into the night. The silence. The night. The deep black. The sound of predators, my heart rushes. One to my left, one to my right. They are closing. One behind. I can feel them circling. I freeze. Not even my breath.
A bolt of lightning ignites the sky.
A single star directly over my head.
The shore. The shore. Is this where I am heading, or was it merely the point of my beginning? Am I to arrive at the same shore? No. There must have been a reason, a direction I undertook. Or was there no shore? Entered at a point already at the horizon.
No difference.
Was I forced?
An accident?
No difference.
And finally when I find the shore will I be expected, the crowd, perhaps they will be waiting, watching. They will lift me over their heads and carry me. The smiles on their faces will they be celebratory, are they? Or will it be the empty landscape. Sand stretching from the water, the dunes? Why should I expect more. Perhaps they are waiting armed, ready to force me back into the water. But expect more, how is it possible. The water. The lifting of the mouth out of the water, the breath in. The lowering of the mouth into the water, the breath out.
So.
_ – Eldon Garnet