Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

  I am swimming across a vast, threatening channel.   The water is cold and dark.   The current moves me more than I manage to move across it.   I see lights at the far shore, appearing just when I need to see them the most.   I swim, and swim, and swim, until I just need to rest.   I just need to close my eyes against the tide, and the force that pulls at me.   And then I wake and I fight to keep swimming,  because that is all that I can do to stay afloat.   I cannot go under.   I allow myself to dream of the shore and that safety.   I was there, once.   I left the shore, and the warmth of safety on my own accord.   And, now, having become immersed in the dark channel between that time  —the shore; warmth; life; people— and another life, I know that to keep swimming is the only way.   The closer I feel I may be getting to the safety of the shore,  ...