Finals Week

Erson takes a breath on Sunday, and goes under.

For days, he can see only five inches past his face. His lungs are held open by c-clamps. He is not falling; he does not know if he has moved.

On Friday, the lecture hall spits him out like a piece of gristle onto the crisp, starched lawn. He crumples, heaves for air. Chokes on the sudden release of water from his sinuses, like a drain plug was pulled. His eyelids have suctioned themselves to his eyeballs.

It was only a swimming pool, he knows, but it felt like the deepest layer of the ocean.