a memory came to him of swimming in the dams at the
farms of his friends. how the cold water
lay eighteen inches or maybe years below the surface, and would caress the limbs; stretching its hard fingers through the syrupy
warmth to catch and clutch. how it could
tighten around the chest like a python, and squeeze breath from the
body. those fingers, that would
sometimes steal a small child or a drunken man, and give them back empty.
those fingers.
that need.
