My Swimming Trunks Have Been Sucked Off [ PRO › ]

Panic is a funny thing. It doesn't make you rational; it makes you inventive . My first thought wasn't "swim to shore." It was "how do I retrieve my trunks from the plumbing of the planet?" I took a deep breath and dove.

“Nicholas,” she said, in the calm, terrible voice she uses when I’ve done something wrong but she’s deciding whether to be amused or furious. “Where are your swimming trunks?”

The beach was small, curved like a comma, with a single scrubby olive tree at its far end. I began a slow, horizontal sidestroke, keeping my entire body below the surface except for my nose and eyes. I looked like a very anxious crocodile. Mark’s voice drifted across the water: “Dude, have you seen my flipper? I swear I left it right here.” My Swimming Trunks Have Been Sucked Off

Chloe swam in, shaking water from her ears. “Anyone want to go back out? The light is amazing.”

Now I was naked, ringless, and my wife was on the beach. This was no longer a comedy. This was a tragedy with a one-man cast. Panic is a funny thing

As I wrapped the towel around my waist, I glanced back at the sea. The vent was still gurgling, still hungry. Somewhere down there, in a dark underwater cave, my pineapples and my marriage band were keeping company with Greek shipwrecks and Poseidon’s loose change.

I decided I didn’t want them back. Some stories are better left where they happened—submerged, absurd, and told only to very close friends after three glasses of wine. “Nicholas,” she said, in the calm, terrible voice

I was indeed squatting, a perfect catcher’s stance, hands clasped in front of me like a fig leaf woven by a desperate man. “Stretching. Important to stretch. Post-swim.”

Chloe’s eyes went wide. Mark started to laugh—that horrible, silent, shoulder-shaking laugh that precedes an explosion. Elena put down her book. She looked at my face. She looked at my clasped hands. She looked at the empty patch of sea behind me.

I pulled back just in time, but my wedding ring scraped against the stone. The ring spun off my finger and plink —gone, swallowed faster than my trunks.