Worlds within Worlds #7.1

7. Resurrection
The water is warm, and calm. And tight.

No.

The tightness is not water. The tightness surrounds me, and the water surrounds it. The tightness is ... safe. It is good. It separates me from the surrounding water.

I open my eyes.

This healing pool is a feast of life. A set of darts captivates my fresh eyes, exercising the muscles within them to focus on this fish, then that, then another one deeper than the others. Brown fish with silver flanks, small and lithe. At one moment they shoal, their movements an execution of perfect team dynamics – a demonstration of how many can become more than one, just as men can become more than men when they join together in the Race. And the next moment, they split in all directions: up, and down, and to all sides – each to its own purpose.

Some fish dart into a woodland of redweeds that glisten in their diamond bubbles, each leaf with its own stalk reaching down to a secret holdfast, hidden from my sight. Here, white-knotted worms and bright-tattooed shrimps graze across the fronds. When a fish approaches a worm, I watch it contract into a barrel of spikes. I remember stepping on such worms, when I breathed air; I remember the shock of pain that this pinhead fiend can unleash on a misplaced toe. The fish, too, knows of this worm: it backs away rapidly, soon joined by its gang mates in a new shoal-dance.

I test my tightness. Fists and heels stretch against the clear membranes that surround me. The water I swallow is sweet. The healing pool still has much work to do.

I close my eyes and dream of cities.