There is a fleeting instant during each of life's most terrible experiences, when time slows and one begins to realize what is actually happening.
I'm drowning, I thought, as the last desperate pocket of air escaped my lungs and drifted out into the void. After discovering the worst about the action, inevitably the worst about the result pops into one's head too.
I'm going to die.
Once this thought enters a mind, it doesn't leave. Ever. For most people, it helps to have that small whisper of colossal knowledge knocking around in the back our their heads, impacting every decision and guiding every mental path. Facing mortality head-on often inspires men and women to change things, inspire others in their turn, and have an affect on the grander scheme.
Others become paranoid.
That day at the lake Uncle Timmy fished me out of the water by my left leg and dried me off, only a few seconds after I discovered that death loomed somewhere on the horizon, maybe sooner than I was expecting it. Uncle Timmy was laughing the entire time he spent wiping the slime from my hair.
"Boy, you were this close to being shark bait," he cackled.
It was my last swimming lesson.
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