Underwater Voices

He began to lose touch with everything that was real. Around him was nothing, everything remained still.

An inexplicable sense of peace filled the place. How he got there a total mystery. All he knew was that it was a beautiful sensation.

Suddenly he heard voices, voices that seemed to be underwater, muffled, far away. Please…don’t go… It was her voice. He could not mistake it. He then began to feel an unstoppable buzzing in his head and felt vibrations all over his body. His eyes became milky white and everything blurred. He did not want to leave nor go back to the world he used to live in; he never made such a great effort to live.

His body called out to him but there was no turning back. He felt like a ship sailing a deep black sea where his sorrows rained down incessantly, his weaknesses became gigantic waves, and his fears strong winds intended on sinking his vessel.

By leaving no one would ever be able to bother him. They would all wait for a response but they knew it wouldn’t come.

We’re losing him, he could hear a watery voice say.

What would people think now if he opened his eyes? He would have wanted people to understand him, that he was passing through a portal where all of his dreams oscillated between the real and the illusory as he waited to cross the bridge of death. He hoped his mind would make a decision so that he could take the next step.

I love you…, he heard her say. Those three words bounced around his brain, shook his body, and froze his soul causing an effect he was not prepared for. Now he missed her, his wife, and being with her was the only thing keeping him alive. He missed her smile, her green eyes, her dark brown hair covering her velvet shoulders, the ethereal embrace of her slender arms, and the glorious touch of her full lips.

It was too late. There was nothing that could be done. He then felt an icy hand drag him out of the room where the voices became harder and harder to hear.


J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)


San Diego


1.6.10