Short Story One. Assignment: Create Setting
Perhaps it was the smell of the chlorine or the shimmering blindness, but as I rose above the pool deck, my feet relieved for the break from the abrasive stone-sand conglomerate, I felt disjointed. I had donned my sunglasses hours ago – three-dollar wayfarer knockoffs with zero UV protection – and had stayed vigilantly hydrated, but I could still feel my awareness dipping as the faux-wood steps fell behind me. As I sat back in the high guard chair the liquid glass lap pool’s artificially blue mirror shot silver light at the frugally darkened shades. In an odd attempt at avoiding the sun and relaxing I let my head loll backwards, and that’s when I missed him.
The little boy had come sprinting around the main fence’s corner about a couple minutes ago. He had arrived with his mother and sister several minutes before that. His mother, Ms. Shannon, drove an early nineties BMW – a nice car, but just old enough to indicate and remind (especially the other families) that the Shannon’s divorce meant the 1993 BMW 7-series would stay a 1993 for some time. Thus is the mentality of a suburban pool and tennis club. Mind you, there is no golf or restaurant to speak of, lacks that diminished the overall appeal of the club, but only bolstered the egos of the patrons. When surfing the middle ground of the “upper” territory in an upper-middle class Boston suburb, every flash of wealth was necessitated and ferociously maintained. Ms. Shannon waded out of the car and her head floated one hundred eighty degrees to evaluate the talent and status of the club members already positioned on the lawn and deck. Her daughter remained motionlessly fixated on her new smart phone: the undead. Interestingly enough, that gadget that connected her to the Twitterverse made her invisible for the next couple of hours. She existed, or rather barely existed, in stark contrast to her brother. Her boy, her youngest, bolted from the backseat to the corner of the fence and waited for his mom to give him the approving nod that would grant him access to the watery wonderland; he bounced with anticipatory, clenched bounces. Ms. Shannon spotted the reclined lounge chair she needed and peered over glasses at it in an attempt to signal to all others in the vicinity that it belonged to her. The boy misinterpreted the temporarily lowered noggin and went for it.
The black chain link fence that surrounded the pool area towered a full eleven feet above the ground, exactly twelve inches over the legally mandated height. In fact, its disproportionate height to strength ratio served to make the barrier exclusive, but in the event of any real effort it had no interest in keeping anything out. However, the fence assumed an awesome aura as the boy, from the corner, made a sweeping and wide arc out from the fence. The berth he gave to the fence seemed to be out respect, but in actuality served to align himself with the open gate, which had a direct line to the pool. Ms. Shannon ducked into the backseat to retrieve her day bag.
When the boy crossed the plane from outside the club to inside the club I lowered my head and rolled it to the left to scan the baby pool area. I didn’t much care for the baby area as it rang of general merriment and childhood cheer most of the time, but could turn without a moment’s notice into a circle of hell reserved for murderers who killed for silence. I smiled, enjoying my station at the lap pool as the boy passed the first row of chairs, the distance between him and the pool waning.
My neck rotated towards the lap pool and something violated my periphery. A father, taking the day off, was attempting to sneak some snacks past me, in spite of the myriad of signage indicating our strict policy against food inside the gates. I raised my red whistle to my lips and tweeted. I cocked my sunglasses in the gentleman’s direction to initiate the universal dialogue between watchmen and subject that wrangles misdeeds and confers disapproval. The whistle, however, did more than squelch the missteps of the papa snacker. It also caught the attention of the, now, sprinting young man from the BMW. The whistle has a very powerful effect, one that erects an immediate and undeniable pyramid of authority within its sphere of influence. While those behaving pay instant attention to the whistle’s declaration, it halts the minds and actions of those disrespecting its employer. The boy’s unscheduled and abrupt start sent him into the air. Not terribly high, actually, just diagonally down. There was no slow motion, my life and training did not flash through my mind, I didn’t grapple for protocol or possible scenarios, nor did my mind go blank with panic for his well being. In fact, I merely took the time to realize that regardless of his landing zone and regardless of his injuries, there would be a mess for me to clean. However, this elongated summary benefits from hindsight and vocabulary. I truly only had one, single, solitary, pronounced, and poignant thought.
“Shit.”
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