Poolside

If I had planned ahead I would have brought wine.

I sat in a deck chair. No, it was a camping chair. Nylon and poles by the side of the pool I had swam in the night before. The sun was going to go down soon but for now it was leaning hard against the treeline and slow cooking the concrete pool area. A small group of people sat around the pool. Three were playing solitaire and two had their feet in the pool and Mallory was painting and I sat in the sun and the chair and fucking baked away.

Bullshit. Sun. Wait.

I kept thinking this was the most reckless I had been since the winter. On rails and in motion and not thinking, seeing, caring. It had moments of smiling but I doubted each of them. It had moments of laughter but I doubted each of them and it had moments of beauty, but what the fuck do I know about beauty?

Bullshit. Beauty. Wait.

I knew these people. Some of them. Fighting anxiety. No different than any other day. Kept thinking it would be nice to just be home and alone and cold and drunk and empty. I thought it would be nice to slide into the pool but the idea of people looking at me, seeing me, wore at me. I would have been surprised if I decided to get out of the chair at all.

A plane flew overhead.

Must be nice to be in flight. To be weightless. To be headed anywhere else, with a drink and a pillow and a destination. Must be nice.

Sweat rolled down my forehead. Elsewhere.

I kept looking out at the pool and the inflatables in it. Pink and blue and yellow chairs and a dolphin and balls all gathered at one end of the pool where I imagined a pump or filter pulled.

The water blue. The sun orange. Colors that 'pop' for movie posters and I felt the same about both. Indifferent.

The dolphin had floated its way toward me. A painted eye stayed targeted on me and a ridiculous unease came through me and then it wasn't looking at me anymore and it floated back to the pull of the filter. The others all danced and swirled and I noticed a turtle and I wondered if the turtle would visit me but I didn't think it would.

The sun.

The pool.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

It would be nice to have a drink, I thought.

The people now were mingling and talking and swaying around and with each other. All part of the show. Part of the day and I had excluded myself and now it was too late to rectify that.

Fuck it, I thought. Write.

It would be nice to have a drink, I thought.

It would be nice to have a drink, and what the fuck do I know about beauty?

I had a solid disdain for something about all of this. I couldn't put my finger on it. The conversation? The camaraderie? The history? Who knew? It didn't matter.

There is no dialogue in this story because listening to it was torture enough. I realize I am just as insufferable as any other part of this. I feel like a vacuum. Sucking life and emotion out of the air.

My chair the fucking pool filter.

I had to end this reckless shit or let it end me and I thought maybe that would be the better option. It required less of me.

The dolphin was back and I thought maybe he was saying I should get in the water. Get under the water. Womb. As the thought ended the dolphin left again. It was then or never.

Never.

That's how it always was.

Mallory laughed behind me.

I pretended I was in my own world and people walked by and I ignored them because I am garbage.

It would be nice to have a drink and what the fuck do I know about beauty?