Kate Day - In the Quick

You’re never going to make a hand, I said, louder than I intended.

All three of their faces turned toward me. Carla looked like she had forgotten I was there. Lion’s face was a blank, and Nico’s brow was furrowed and sweaty.

No shit, Nico said.

You’re trying to copy. I turned my wrist in the air. But we’re not made of metal. We’re made of skin and muscles and bones…

The wrong thing—the combined small and large shapes—moved in my mind. My imaginary hand rotated its wrist; it wiggled its fingers.

What would a metal hand do? I asked. It felt like the exact right question.

That’s what we’re trying to answer, Lion said gently.

No, what I mean is— I struggled. I looked to Carla but she shook her head. She wasn’t following. What I mean is what would a metal hand do?

Nico threw up his arms.

I wanted them to understand. I wanted to say it again another way, but I couldn’t think how. They turned their attention to hand number six; they were talking to one another again.

All around us kids were packing things up, putting tools away. It was the time of day when my aunt would be in the kitchen stirring pots of food. But Carla and Lion and Nico didn’t seem aware that everyone else was leaving, that it must be close to dinnertime. I was hungry. Lunch in the cafeteria had been soup that smelled bad. I picked up some small screws that came out of number five’s pinkie finger and felt their edges against my palm. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes and I turned my head to the window so the others wouldn’t see. The light was fading and the snow falling fast. I watched the snow; I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

The school day started at six with laps around the track. At seven was subjects—mathematics, physics, chemistry, or biology, depending on the day. There was a short break for breakfast at eight, and then back to subjects. From eleven to twelve was free period, when we wandered around in a yard littered with the shells of discontinued shuttles and jets and even a rusted-out blimp. On Wednesdays and Fridays we had our allotted time at a murky indoor pool inside an echoing and indifferently heated building. That was where we learned the basics of scuba, which would prepare us for more complex training later on in the NSP neutral buoyancy tanks.

On my first day at the dive pool everyone began putting on gear to start the first dive, but I was directed to wait by the equipment cage. In the big pool kids sank quickly into the water. Carla and Lion sat on the edge of the pool; they talked for a minute and then jumped in. The minutes ticked by. I listened to the thrum of the vents overhead, the flapping splash of the divers in the pool. The air was humid and slightly dank.

A voice came from behind me: You ready June?

It was Simon. He pushed a pile of equipment into my arms and led me to a smaller pool. He laid all the equipment out on the pool deck and explained what each thing was and how to put it on.

We went through a series of safety check simulations. I had to repeat these back to him three times, and then I finally got to put my mask on. Once it was secure, its rubber strap tight against the back of my head and pulling slightly at my hair, I pushed my regulator into my mouth, held my breath, and sank into the water.

Hold up, he said. Practice breathing first.

I straightened up and inhaled and exhaled through the regulator for several minutes. It hurt my jaw to keep my mouth secured around the regulator, but other than that it was fine.

All right. Go for it.

I submerged my head, blinked my eyes, turned my face. My line of sight in my mask was narrow. Below me Simon’s water shoes were brilliant blue and the bottom of the pool had a crack down the middle that looked like a fishhook. I let out the breath I was holding, bubbles surrounded me, and then I slowly inhaled. It was incredibly loud. Every inhale a rushing roar, every exhale a bubbling whoosh. My breath quickened and started to shake; my limbs were full of pinpricks. Something wasn’t right. I was breathing but didn’t seem to be getting oxygen. Panic tightened my chest and I pulled myself back up.

Too fast. Simon put his hand on my shoulder and pulled the regulator from my mouth. You’re going to hyperventilate.

Breathe from here, he said, and tapped his hand high on his stomach. Low and slow.

I replaced the regulator and lowered my body back into the water. I forced myself to fill up my abdomen with each inhale and empty my lungs fully with each exhale. After ten breaths I came up, and Simon said, Better. But don’t bite your regulator.

With each repetition my body calmed. I let my hands float in the water and relaxed my mouth. Then Simon handed me a pair of flippers and threw rings into the pool and I swam to retrieve them. My vision was distorted under water—the rings appeared closer than they actually were, and I kept grabbing for them and missing. But after a few minutes my eyes adapted and I stretched my hands farther and began to gauge the distance right.

There’s just enough time to try a real dive before the buses come back to get us, Simon said. He asked me to repeat back to him what he’d taught me about controlled descent and then dug around in the equipment cage to find a wet suit in my size.

It was impossible to put on. I struggled to tug it up my legs but couldn’t move the thick, stretchy fabric more than half an inch at a time. I twisted and pulled and began to sweat. I stopped and watched Simon, how he quickly and deftly folded the fabric of his own suit before pushing his limbs inside. I tried to copy him and when he saw me he laughed. Here, he said, and came closer and grabbed my sleeve. His soft hair was hidden under his diving hood and I noticed for the first time how long his eyelashes were. He worked his hand inside my sleeve and pulled my arm through.

We repeated the safety checks I’d learned earlier, and finally sat on the edge of the big pool and put our regulators into our mouths. A few kids stood on the pool deck, but most of them were still under the surface.

We don’t need to stay down there long, Simon said, and stretched his arms in front of him. Just a few minutes, and then we’ll come up slow. Okay?

We dropped into the water and sank an inch at a time. It was an odd feeling, being in a pool in a wet suit, weightless but with no sensation of the cool water against my skin. My breathing was still loud but I could hear other things too, the glug of Simon’s bubbles near my head, the flup of a kid swimming past—and in the background, a swaying hum that was the pressure of the water itself against my ears.

Simon made sure he was right in front of me, always in my line of vision, framed by my mask. When I drifted he shifted his body in the water; when my body rotated, he nudged me back upright.

We kept going, down and down. When the pressure in my ears increased, I held my nose and blew like Simon had shown me. I kept my breath low and slow. The pool was surprisingly deep, at least twenty, twenty-five feet. The water grew darker and quieter. Every so often I saw the kick of a fin or bubbles moving upward. I knew there were other divers nearby but it almost felt as if we were alone.

Eventually my feet touched the bottom. Now I could see people clustered on the pool floor. One group was collecting plastic diving rings. Another was untying a heavy box secured to the floor. My breathing was fine; I was doing okay. I rotated my head to expand the narrow field of vision inside my mask. Left, right. But then I looked up; far above me fins splashed and dark bodies moved through the water. What was up seemed like it should be down, and the dimensions of the pool seemed to bend. My stomach turned and pressed against my skin. I clenched my regulator in my teeth and pulled my arms to my chest, and my body began to rotate.