I never got his name
Marcia Ratliff
We are swimming across a wetland in the rain, and the channel is all we can see, a thick hedge on each side, cut like a Los Angeles wash out of the ground, extending for miles in one 10-foot lane. He and I, we can almost kiss in the rain, and we want to, our faces pale and wet, but we have never seen each other before this endless day. In it for the long haul? he asks. I guess, I reply, coughing a laugh. But I’m a terrible swimmer. There must be a current around us, coming from behind, because I am breathing easily, keeping pace beside him, feeling the splash of his strokes, rhythmic in the steady rain. A few cars pass us on the road, black cars with high beams on, maybe looking for us. A group of men swims up behind us, loud, and too excited to be swimming the endless channel, even in such a warm rain. They surround us, separate us. I wake up as they are deciding how to kill him, my partner, alarmed but silent his bare chest heaving against the ripples. I sleep again and immediately feel the rush of cold. We are still in the channel, and now wind chills our skin and I have cleared the men out, somehow, while I was awake. They swim away, shouting threats. It starts to rain again, warm again. Our hair looks good in the rain, and we almost kiss, because this is a dream, and that would be romantic, but we are running out of time, the current at our backs.
15
