Poolside Resort – A Liminal Space

Image courtesy of Ivana Onubogu

By Ivana Onubogu

When I stand still, I can hear water lapping against the draining holes even though the pool looks flat to my eyes. The pool water is ugly, shriveled leaves bobbing to the ebb and flow of the moon. This place feels manufactured, like something broken apart and forced together, haphazard. In a way, this place reminds me of the seeds that my mother carries in her handbag. They too do not appear to know one another despite their proximity. She tells me that they bear life, so that wherever she goes, she can always lay down roots. I know that whatever seeds that laid down this place only play at life—even the leaves are ghostly pale, as if something leeched the color from the spindly veins now crumbled in the water.

I close my eyes. This space is less ugly, more bearable this way. I sit down and some tension flows out of my legs, into the water perhaps. I let myself drain the pool water out of my mind, listening to the night sounds. There are insects chittering in the far bushes and wind in the leaves overhead. Finally, I can feel the cold night air. It bristles through the hairs on my arms and my face and my legs. I swear I can feel every goosebump bloom on my skin and it’s beautiful because every cell in my body speaks to me and I never realized I walk around with dead limbs until this moment.

The instructor speaks. My eyes open. It’s dark still and the pool is still ugly. Somebody kicks their feet under the shallow side of the pool. I can’t make them out and don’t care to. My limbs are dead again. I can’t hear myself anymore. It’s just the wet sound of the flat water and the instructor and the disembodied legs waving at me from beneath the surface.                                                                    

Related: AALCI 2020