Читать книгу: «The Swim»

Annie Sonnenberg

The Swim

A Short Story

Impressum / imprint

Text & Umschlag / text and cover image:

Annette Sonnenberg

Verlag / published by:

Annette Sonnenberg

Rösekenwinkel 22, 38110 Braunschweig

mail@anniesonnenberg.de

Vertrieb / distributed by:

epubli – ein Service der neopubli GmbH, Berlin

The sun is shining on the outskirts of the German island of Sylt. Water temperatures are 12 degrees Celsius; there’s nobody on the beach apart from a scattered handful of dog owners. A coastguard boat is discernible above the water, on the horizon, mottled with a number of stand-up paddle boards. Those look funny from above: Like prolonged eggs frying in the sun, eggs in which somebody’s stirring with a chopstick.

The human bundle in front of the municipality of Hörnum, however, is neither frying nor stirring anything. Nothing at all. It feels like she’s been swimming for ages: left, right, left, right; her head moving to the side with every second crawl stroke; the muscles in her back working. But all that’s happening mechanically. She doesn’t really pay attention.

She’s trying to perceive her surroundings. There’s a rich underwater world before Sylt; fish and jellyfish must be in her immediate vicinity. Maybe even lobsters. But her efforts don’t pay off: She doesn’t see any creatures of the sea. Even the waves are blurring into yet a denser frequency, blurring into a mist, and the sunshine they are reflecting forces her again and again to close her eyes.

The sun vanishes behind a cloud. She is an experienced swimmer; the frequent movement to the side doesn’t irritate her: She opens her eyes and keeps them open. It’s not working - all she can see is her own hands. Her forearms are invisible within the blackness of the neoprene wetsuit, but she doesn’t even realize this. Her courage fails her again: She feels her aching shoulders, the insteps of her feet and her forearms seem hot with exertion, in spite of the cold water.

Her breathing is loud and intense. She listens to herself but doesn’t realize this until she wonders whether she’s been panting like this for long. It was to be expected that she’d be out of breath after the distance she has covered, but the distance yet to come is still so long!

Her movements come frantically, irregularly. Panic takes hold of her: She knows if she gets a cramp now she’ll die. And now she perceives something of her surroundings after all: The coastguard boat has covered such a distance it cannot be seen any longer; the man on the paddle board closest to her has turned off towards the beach. And she doesn’t have the power to cry anymore. She needs her energy to keep above water.

She still hears her breath, unnaturally loud. Then, suddenly, she calms down completely. Her thoughts find their room to move, are not swimming in the North Sea but rather in the ocean of her conscience. She thinks of the countless number of homeless people who have drowned in the Mediterranean. Who are still drowning. Suddenly she feels close to them, very close. She knows what it means if one’s strength threatens to leave. She knows this fear, and no one should have to face it!

She tastes sea spray on her dried-out lips. If she’d only made an effort, if only she could now, at this precise moment, make an effort for those helpless people in the Mediterranean! So far, she has only ever donated money, donated and prayed. It doesn’t occur to her to pray for herself; no, she prays first for the others, then generally for everybody she knows. A thought crosses her mind: I want to make up for it, I want to help! Only then does she, almost ashamed, pray also for herself.