Night Swimming

A short-short story by Adrian Hoppel

After he paid $6.87 in cash, counting out the change, he limped out into this town he didn’t know, filled with unfamiliar people.

When did Hallmark cards get so expensive, anyway?

He was born in this town, went to school here, lived his whole life on these streets. And yet — strangers. All of them.

He sat down on the bench next to the parking meter in front of the dune grass, and opened the card. He had to write him. So he would know. Know what? Exactly. How do you explain in a note what you can’t explain face to face after all of these years? He couldn’t see him again. Everything had to fit in this card.

The card was stuffed in the envelope. He walked toward the surf. Each piece of clothing came off, was perfectly folded and stacked on top of the empty lifeguard stand, with the card in the envelop on top.

Naked, he walked into the water until he couldn’t walk anymore, and then he swam toward the horizon until he couldn’t swim anymore.

The lights came on, he was under a sheet. Brightness, warmth.

“Where am I?”

“Here,” came a voice from behind him. He tried to get up, but could not move.

“Where is here?”

“Here is where you go. After.”

“After what?”

“After there,” mused the voice.

“Oh. Am I in trouble?”

“For what?”

“For what I did. I thought if there was an after that you got in trouble for leaving there that way.”

The voice chuckled. “No, quite the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, who would actually want to stay in such a place? It is filled with despair and pain and suffering and heartache. Disaster and brutality. The brave ones find a way out.”

“Huh. I thought I would go to hell or something.”

“No son. That’s where you came from.”

“So it was all like a test?”

“Let’s just say we want people who realize that is not someplace to stay, that everything there is full of disease.”

“Well, not everything. Not all of it.”

“All of it.”

“Sometimes we make stuff that is pretty great. Like art.”

“False standards. Moments incapable of reproduction. Modern Art realized this, and then you glorified that.”

“Music.”

“Yeah. No. Shadows of what you are capable of. Teasers. Beethoven’s 9th: most people like it. Some are moved to tears. The best realize it’s too good for that place. And they leave. Like you.”

“But…he was something. He was everything.”

“No he wasn’t. He wasn’t worth your breath.”

“He was!”

“Bullshit. I looked at the card.”

“You don’t know! He was…”

The voice laughed. “You don’t believe that, son, not really!”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I don’t know. But I think I want to go back.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Can I?”

“Sure.”

He woke up. They were there. And he hurt. Everything hurt. But he had to see him again.

He was there. He had the card.