First published on 21st December 2020 for Artychoke Zine
I like swimming. I used to swim a lot when I was younger – every Thursday and Sunday evening: swimming hat, speedos and googles so tight that I had red glasses imprinted on my skin for the rest of the day. Diving in at the shallow end, tumble turns, counting strokes and chasing the minute hand as it sped round on the big pool clock was my childhood. As was the tinge of chlorine, pruney fingers and a wet towel hanging to dry on my bedroom radiator.
My dad always said I was an elegant swimmer – hands slicing open the water, long fluid kicks and snorting out plumes of bubbles. I guess I liked the technique of swimming. Backstroke, letting my thumb pull my arm out of the water, and my pinkie finger sucking it down. Front crawl, my elbow like a shark fin, menacing down the lane, and best of all, Breaststroke. Coordinating arms and legs, to pull myself along and finishing with a two handed splash. I wasn’t tall, and with small hands and feet, I was never going to be the fastest, but I did compete.
Now as an adult, I swim for fun. I picked a flashy gym, purely because it has a pool, and I love that feeling of pushing off and gliding underwater, streamlined and dynamic and letting the air in my lungs pull me up to the surface.
In my gym, the pool has been divided in two- an arbitrary fast/slow dichotomy. How fast is fast I hear you say? You decide. The rules state that you should swim clockwise in the fast lane, and anticlockwise in the slow lane. This doesn’t always happen.
As a solo, you can do whatever the hell you like. Lengths, breaths, bombs, mushrooms, floating on your back or challenging yourself to make the biggest splash. You make the rules, you own that lane.
When we are two swimmers, we pick one side of the lane and stick to it. Laying down our scent and marking our territory. The tone, although fortified by staunch possessiveness, is casual. I can dive, and sink, glide and meander along, swapping between strokes on a whim, pausing when I fancy. My lane partner does the same, both emboldened by our own autonomy.
Suddenly a third enters the equation, and the mood darkens. Through myopia, I try to second guess what this new challenger will do. Will they squeeze through the middle, so our fingertips occasionally brush each other? Or do they obey the sign and throw our whole stasis into anarchy? Do they, or don’t they, swim clockwise?
More often than not it’s a toss-up between obeying the preordained and improvising. They’ll scout out the scene, push off and make a choice. The hunters, bear down on us so that our toes are licked by spray, and bubbles chase us out of the way. The betas, meanwhile, will pick the less offensive of us two, and wriggle into their rhythm, leaving the other, the alpha, to gloat in their authority. As more join, the pull of the clock sucks us in, and one by one we succumb.
I like to see how long I can hold my own. Daring them to come at me, head on collision, I will not chicken. If my ally crumbles, then the fight may not be lost – do I need to submit to the new equilibrium or flit between the rolling bodies, gliding to the splash of my own rhythm?
Charlotte Arnold 