Out of the Coma

Draft:

I was eight years old and about to try my first back flip. I'd only just become acquainted with the board the year before, when my instructor at Sandersted Pool picked me up like a valise, carried me to the end of the board and threw me off [the train]. He knew instinctively it was just what I needed. He never had to carry me again.

So I was on the board. I'd already mastered my version of the perfect dive, front and back, and the backflip was the next step in facing my fears.

I stepped up onto the cantilevered platform, narrow and more buoyant in the air as I neared the end. What I thought was the end. When I turned myself around in my best professional diver's manner and settled my toes into board, I didn't know I was a third of a meter (yes, metrics, this was diving, after all) from the end of the board. Knees down, find your power, prepare to hurtle up and backwards, like a professional! 

All of a sudden I came crashing down on the end of the board. Down on my head, body bounces off onto the edge of the pool, rolls into water.

Hmm -- how come I've never brought that up in therapy? [Because I hadn't yet remembered the event] And the world opens up just a little bit more.

The Lifeguard pulled me out of the pool in a swift motion. [I'd been rescued from the drink before, so I was easy, limp, no fighting the saviour] A towel went around me. I was a squirt in those days. Hidden, entombed, shivering and anxiously awaiting the okay to go back in the pool. [I promise I don't have a concussion] No Go, he said. [Please, please, let me! I softly whined.]