(idea) by junkpile Sat Sep 09 2000 at 22:16:20
My father and I walked up to the tidepool. I knew if I wasn't careful, I would wake up. So I was careful.

The water was blue and green and came seeping silently in a wide field down the flat rock slope. Intellectually I knew this made it not a tidepool, but a tidepool is what it was. The water was colored so brightly because it was so clean.

I stepped into the shallows and it was cold, but not too cold. I swam slowly around the edge, feeling the sand nudge my toes when I kicked. I swam out to the middle and trod water as gently as I could, to still the surface, so I could look for fish. I did not see any fish but the sunlight filtered through the blue and green all the way to the clean rocks on the bottom, and it was beautiful.

My father stood on the shore watching me with his hands in his pockets. This isn't like you, he said, smiling. I know, I said, and dove down to the bottom.

I like it!