The Yellow Robe (Part II)

Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment, 30 December 2004
An experience with water

In my old neighborhood, I held the record for holding my breath longest. My best times were clocked underwater in the bathtub at home. It was a big deal to me, like when I showed off my few really fancy moves in ice skating. That is, until I spun out of control and cracked my skull on the ice. The seizures began soon afterwards and it was the end of show-off ice skating for me.

This particular afternoon in my new neighborhood was warm and sunny. The sky was blue and dotted lazily with puffy clouds. I was fourteen. My family and I had just moved and this was our first day at the town swimming pool. Everyone was poolside.

Bright towels quilted strips of lawn everywhere. The flat area was for families. The sloping lawn was reserved for the bikini-clad “clickers” – the most popular teenagers. A stockade fence kept everything in place, inside and apart from the houses, trains, and roads.

There I was, the new kid – wearing a blue one piece bathing suit, trying to fit in. I was holding my breath; feet waving in the water, eyes stinging from chlorine, hands groping for the stream of water bubbling into the pool from the bottom, and long brown hair streaming eerily upwards from my head.

Suddenly, the water around me churned crazily and spit out millions of air bubbles. I sensed that a very large object had fallen into the pool. Through the distorted water, I saw not an object, but thin white legs and billowing yellow cloth.

My father had jumped into the pool fully dressed in his long yellow terry cloth robe, CIA-style black sunglasses, large-brimmed straw hat that looked like a sombrero with tentacles, and worn black flip flops. He grabbed me with one hand and pulled me sputtering into the air. I was mortified.

A split second later, when I could stand upright in the pool on my own two feet, I demanded, “Why did you do that?” He told me he thought I was having another grand mal seizure.

He was just trying to save my life; but I doubt that anyone at the pool would remember it that way.