Swim Lesson
by Brennan Thomas
part 1
The man was naked and completely submerged, a limp cell suspended in an embryonic sac. He bobbed on the other side of the float line that separated the pool’s shallows from the deep, buoyed by his swim partner’s fin.
The pool was regulation-sized according to Water Game standards: 80 meters long, 40 meters wide. The shallowest end was merely one meter deep, sloping down to ten meters before the float line. At the deep end, where all swimmers, regardless of age, completed their final lesson, the pool’s bottom lay 100 meters below.
The bottom was cleaned once every two weeks, as per regulation. The man had observed the cleaning process once at another Water Game pool. All sorts of junk had floated to the surface — goggles, flippers, beamers, helmets, pasties — most of it partially dissolved from being stuck in concentrated Aqualine for days.
He was on the other side of the float line, the other side of forty, and finally learning to swim.
“This is so weird, having... you teach me this.”
The only way adults learn these days, the shark answered, fixing its black gaze on the man. If you had learned when you were six, you would be taking your lesson over there with Kita.
The shark gestured to the poolside’s shallow end, where a lithe, silver unitard-clad brunette was demonstrating for a group of L-8 children how to pantomime the distress signal when caught in street currents. She was trying to get them to rotate their arms in Octo-plane circles. The girls were making a half-hearted attempt at this. The boys were mostly elbowing each other.
The man was the only adult learning today. “No other takers, huh?”
Usually that way, the shark explained. We cannot swim backward easily. That makes it hard to keep equal focus on two people if one of them slips below the surface, as you are about to.
The man gagged as his nose and mouth filled with salt water. The shark wrenched the man’s upper body from the water and clapped its pectoral fin across his back. Remove that stuff before it takes seed.
“Surprised you know what a seed is,” the man coughed.
Pools are marvelous places for absorption. The shark clapped him hard once again; Aqualine shot out the man’s nostrils.
“I wish,” the man breathed against stinging tears, “I didn’t have to learn like this.”
You have already mastered the basic S paddle. Try broader strokes now. Move your arms like an Octo-plane.
“I’m afraid to.”
A few of the L-8 swimmers had noticed the man. One of the boys began making flapping gestures like a drowned pigeon for his friends’ amusement, chirping in a bird-like falsetto, “Save me, oh Hammerhead, save me!”
The shark raked its fin across the man’s back, its denticles scraping off several microlayers of dead skin cells.
“Ouch!” the man cried out.
Stop paying attention to those silly children. It submerged its head; beneath the pool’s surface, its eyes appeared gruesomely large, its winged head wobbly and distorted. The shark took several breaths before resurfacing. If there is one futile errand in this world, it is seeking the fickle admiration of prepubescent human males.
“Do you have children?” asked the man.
Two females, both fully grown and on their own. The shark began circling him; its swirling movements kept the man afloat as well as any tube-rotor might do. As you must learn to be.
The man took this as his cue to stretch his arms across the tightening swells and push water out of his way.
Your feet must kick harder, the shark advised. Faster.
The man obeyed, but his cheeks reddened in breathless frustration.
Faster.
The man’s kicks became more erratic, his arms flailing for something to grab in the empty space above the churning water.
Even, the shark commanded, its tone unchanging. Keep your kicks even.
“I can’t!” he cried out as he slipped beneath the surface again.
The shark grabbed the man’s thrashing left forearm and pulled him above the water. This time, it did not let go until the man’s breathing slowed. As he sucked salty air into his lungs, the shark repositioned the man’s goggles and closed his nose clip.
“This would be a lot easier,” the man wheezed, “if I didn’t have a hundred meters between me and the damn bottom!”
The deep gives one freedom. The shark pressed the man’s hand into a cup shape and dunked it. Children learn to dive down and catch dropped nereid eyes in their mouths for their swim final. They do it eight times.
“I won’t be doing that today, will I?”
No, adults have a different challenge. The shark pulled the man’s cupped hand forward in a single smooth stroke, then reached for the other hand. Children show mastery through play. Adults show mastery through initiative. And speed.
The shark had stopped circling. No longer buoyed by his companion’s spins, the man slipped below the surface again. This time, he managed to keep his goggles on. He watched as the shark lunged towards him, its eyes rolling back behind a thick white membrane. This protective instinct to blind itself when closing in on objects gave the shark a ghostly appearance as it wriggled its snout between the man’s legs. For an instant, the man was paralyzed by terror as the shark’s jaws snapped at the water just below his dangling testicles. Pain replaced fear as the shark’s denticles dug into his thighs and it lifted him above the water.
The man could hear over his watery sputters the children laughing again and their L-8 instructor struggling to refocus their attention.
What are you afraid of?
“Sinking!” the man gasped.
I will not let you sink. It dipped its head into the water, pumped two breaths through its gill slits and resurfaced.
“You don’t understand. For you, swimming is natural. For me, it’s like being in outer space.”
I have heard of space from other swimmers. It sounds like an ocean. With no bottom.
“I suppose you could call it that.”
They drifted towards the left corner, and a small ladder was within reach. The man, still breathing heavily, reached for it, but the shark blocked his hand with its body.
You cannot learn to swim hanging from a ladder.
“For Seidon’s sake, let me rest a moment!”
As soon as you can stay afloat on your own, you may rest.
“Not bloody likely.”
The man stared at his kicking feet, two peach-flesh paddles flailing over one hundred meters of darkening blue. The shark’s right pectoral fin held fast to the man’s trembling forearm.
“Have you ever seen anyone sink all the way to the bottom?”
No, the shark said. One must be weighted to sink all the way to the bottom while still alive. He tapped the man’s chest, which rose and fell with large, measured breaths. Air in your lungs keeps you afloat. Its black eyes scanned the man’s middle-aged middle. Fat keeps you afloat.
“I’m planning on losing it.”
I surmise that you have been planning to do many things. The shark let go and began circling him again, displacing water silently with its tail’s gentle thrusts. This time, the man kept his head and neck above the surface. He kicked his legs and paddled his arms in rhythm with the shark’s coiling swirls. His breathing was still hard but more regular.
Good, now try moving around a little, the shark coaxed as it swam towards the far side of the pool. The man turned slightly to the right and tried to follow, but unsuccessfully. When the shark observed him sinking again, it caught the man’s arm and pulled him along, like a bag of mice being led by a gray torpedo Pied Piper.
What motivated you to get your lesson today? the shark asked, resuming its circular swimming around its overaged, overweight pupil.
“I... I just felt I needed to get it done,” the man panted, his head nearly slipping under the water again.
The shark swam forward and slithered its pectoral fin beneath the man’s arm.
Come, no point lying to a shark. I could never testify against you. It steadied the man’s arm and pumped it up and down several more times until the man’s breathing slowed.
“There’s this woman—”
Copyright © 2026 by Brennan Thomas
