Word Count: 359
The summer night is so warm. And quiet. The backyard rolls away into the darkness of black trees. The pool sits like a cupcake, luring me to its cool icing and I crush out my cigarette, leave my coffee cup sitting on the ledge, and walk down the hill, pull down the ladder, take off my robe and slip into the silent invite of the water.
My husband has long been asleep. The neighbors too, it appears. Just a few nightlights glow dimly through windows.
I don’t swim but float on my back up and down the length of the pool, skimming the surface, barely rippling the water, barely making a sound. There’s a loneliness that conflicts with the joy of being alone in a world full of people who don’t know I’m here, bathing in moonlight, naked and absorbing the moment I don’t have to share.
Slipping out of the water, waiting for the warm air to dry the beads of water off my body. There comes that instant when it becomes strange, even to me. When I wonder if anyone’s watching, if someone heard something, a splash, a sigh, and looked out their windows to see what’s different in their night.
I put on my robe though it clings to the still-wet skin. Put up the pool ladder carefully, not wanting to cut the silence with a clang or even a squeak. The house calls me back home, a plump white box in the distance that looks further than the pool did when I stood at the doorstep.
I can’t believe I went down there, tested the waters as if it’d be different from the day time offer of a cool dip to offset the heat of the sun. My secret, a chill that comes not from the cool air on my wet skin, but from an ancient past. One of the thrills I sought in my youth, the near topple from treading the edges, of peeking over the good walls I’d built, of reaching in and taking something to hold in my hand as a secret. My moment I stole from the otherwise sleeping night.
