black history/futures: allying with water

it's feb! that means it's black history/futures month. my goal in 2024 is one flash fiction story per week. all stories from this month and past years here.

preface: today’s story is inspired by the episode of how to survive the end of the world with adaku utah.

i sank my feet into the lukewarm pond. it never mattered how warm or cold the water was; the first moment always felt cold. (i still remember the day when my water teacher first showed me why skin registers wet as cold).

on water study day, i always did my morning practice at the pond. it was the easiest place i could drop into the water without human disturbance. i started my hour as is my practice: centering in the 7 directions, length, width, height, east, south, west, north, center. after centering, i settled into my breath for the hour. on the inhale, i recited “i am water.” on the exhale, “be like water.”

as usual, about 40 minutes in (when the theta brain wave shift happens), the water began crawling up my skin to cover my calves. today, though, on the 100th day of my water study, the water didn’t stop at my calves… my allyship with water was finally deepening. i thought this day would never come…

words / writing / post-processing
145w / 11min / 3min