Was it when I said yes when I should have said no? Or when I said it was okay when it really wasn’t? Is it when I took that first sip and liked it? Or when I did the wrong thing even though I knew what was right, just because I liked how it made me feel? I didn’t know. I had lost myself and didn’t know where to start looking. And for all the times I hadn’t kept my promise. Maybe this was punishment for all the mistakes I’d made. I was losing myself, and on the express train to self-destruction. Much like the sea made me feel at that moment. To be free.ĭuring the period before this unfortunate predicament, I’d felt trapped. To find that better place promised to those who cross over to the other side. My mind was a disco of thoughts, flashes of the past that was and future that could have been. The promise of peace, calm and never-ending tranquility. There is some beauty to the tragedy of dying. I couldn’t move, partly because my foot was caught in between some rocks and partly because some part of me wouldn’t let me. This can’t be the end!” I tried reassuring myself, to no avail. So how did I end up here? Your guess is as good as mine. My phobia for water bodies larger than a bathtub had followed me around all my life, hanging around and keeping me from the ‘pleasures’ of swimming and other such activities. I flapped my hands, willing myself to move, to swim to safety but the water had other plans. I tried to send a prayer out into the unseen but couldn’t focus. I could feel the water filling up my lungs.

The thought registered somewhere deep in the crevices of my mind.

Kintu goodreads