High Dive by Niles Reddick

The hose dumped a stream of water into the pool, and during my lesson, the water level rose, lapping a few inches from the filters that catch bugs, paper, or even once, a snake.

The swim teacher tried to coax me off the high dive, but I wouldn’t budge, and the line waited.  “I’ve got you. Come on. You can do it. You can’t let fear run your life,” she said.

I closed my eyes, jumped, and she pulled me up and told me to dog paddle to the shallow end. I paddled my arms and feet and bobbed up and down like a buoy until I could touch the bottom with my big toe pointed like a ballet dancer. I got water with chlorine in my nose and mouth, sneezed and spit, and ran up the steps, onto the pavement, and back to the diving board.

“Can I go again?” I asked the swim teacher.

“Yes!”

Niles Reddick is author of a novel, two collections, and a novella. His work has been featured in nineteen anthologies, twenty-one countries, and in over three hundred publications including The Saturday Evening Post, PIF, New Reader Magazine, Forth Magazine, Citron Review, and The Boston Literary Magazine.
Website: http://nilesreddick.com/
Twitter: @niles_reddick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/niles.reddick.9
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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niles-reddick-0759b09b/

photo – “the classic belly flop”by j.cliss is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0