The Purple Rocking Chair
As the graying shades of evening offered the neighborhood a calm atmosphere, Jaylon sat in the purple rocking chair, watching the purple comforter. Dusk was his favorite time of day. A hard day of work behind him. Finished business. A feeling of accomplishment. Relaxation. Dinner with someone he loved. Yet today was none of those favorite feelings. Today, dusk meant sadness. Dusk meant pain.
He didn’t mean to get into a relationship. Feelings happened. The relationship came by accident. She was just supposed to be another notch. That’s what pretty girls were for. Questions in his mind recycled themselves. What went wrong?
Jaylon didn’t like purple. A purple room was stupid. Why did he get purple? His eyes dropped to his phone. He tapped her picture. The voice on the other end of the line sounded annoyed this time.
“Jaylon, I told you there’s nothing else to talk about.”
“Just coffee.”
“We’ve already had coffee.”
“Okay, lunch.”
“Jaylon, I’m hanging up now.”
“I just want to see you one more time. Where are you?”
There was silence on the other end. He looked at the screen: CALL ENDED.
He called again. Her voice mail picked up.
He called again: “You can’t just leave me like this.”
He called again: “Did you like the poem I left under your doormat? I have a copy of it with me. I’ll read it if you want me to.”
The purple bothered him. He rocked forward. He rocked backward.
He called again. “You’re with that punk, aren’t you?”
The rocking chair threatened to tip.
He called again. “I took you to Vegas. You could at least have the decency to answer the phone. And if you’re with that punk, I’m going to do something foul to both of you.” He clenched his jaw. I’m not calling her anymore. She doesn’t deserve me. She’s probably laughing because she made me fall in love with her…bragging to her new lover that I won’t leave her alone.
He called again: “Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. If we could just talk. Tell me what I need to do and I will fix this. I can fix us!”
The rocking stopped. His fist unclenched. The purple morphed into blackness. She had no idea that he was sitting in her house—in the bedroom he had decorated because she wanted purple.
Finished business. A feeling of accomplishment. Relaxation. He smiled. That’s how he would feel when he got done with her.
The sound of a car reached his ears as she pulled up in the driveway. His smile became twisted. He heard the car door slam. Suddenly, he began to appreciate the color purple as he pictured it splattered with red.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sit in the investigator’s office. He’s on a business call, so I study his features. With brown hair and a sharp nose, he looks like a fox with a unibrow. I try to picture him in dark shades at a restaurant sitting two tables away from a couple he’s watching. I imagine him pretending he’s reading a newspaper, touching a cup of coffee to his lips but not sipping; maybe listening with some high-tech earpiece hidden in his ear. It would be one of those microphones that filter out background noise, but could be adjusted to read thoughts. Yep, that’s why this guy is so expensive: his high-tech earpiece reads the minds of adulterers.
My eyes turn to a photo on his desk of him, his soul mate, and their two small children.
I wonder if he has ever cheated on his wife. At one time in our marriage, my own wife had me convinced that only men did that sort of thing. “It’s in a man’s nature,” she told me. “You can’t help it.”
Then why am I the one sitting in an investigator’s office with my right knee bouncing up and down?
The private investigator finishes his call and rests his elbows on his desk. “Sixty five percent of my clients are infidelity cases,” he says. “Many just like you.” He shrugs his shoulders. “They just want peace of mind and half of them get what they’re looking for.”
I picture the other half leaving his office, clutching incriminating photos of their spouses in one hand and a box of Kleenex in the other.
He slides a manila envelope across the desk.
I open it and pull out her phone records, a GPS report, and photos. I look up. “I thought you said that accessing phone records is illegal? That you don’t do illegal stuff.”
He shrugs his shoulders again. “I don’t get many male clients, so I give them the special treatment.”
I slide the photos from under the phone records. I see pictures of her and her coworker at a restaurant. They’re leaning towards each other over the table. I imagine her slipping off her high heel and sliding her foot up his pants leg. Is that what she did? I can’t tell. The photo didn’t reveal what might have been going on under the table. I look up again. “Did they kiss?”
The P.I. shook his head from side to side. “No.”
I wonder how much happened before this picture and how much happened afterwards. “Did they touch at any time while they were eating?”
“No, they didn’t.”
Another picture shows them leaving the restaurant. Although they weren’t touching, I picture them holding hands, swinging them back and forth, her laughing at jokes that aren’t funny; playfully slapping him on the arm. Another picture is of them going in different directions. It looks like they are walking to their cars. Did he ask when he could see her again? Did she offer him promises that would compel her to lie to me again? Did she tell him the same things she used to tell me when we first started dating?
Still staring at the photo, I ask the P.I. “Did they kiss or something before they walked away from each other?”
Again, he shakes his head from side to side.
“Was this the only time you saw them together?”
“There’s other photos of them having coffee at Lyla’s Sippy House.”
“Are they touching in any of those photos?”
Once more, the P.I. says, “No. When someone is having an affair, they’re usually affectionate with the other person.”
My eyes narrow. “So you’re saying that they aren’t having an affair?”
The P.I shakes his head. “I’m not saying that. But if they are sleeping together, we’ll catch them holding hands, kissing, or sharing long embraces.” He leans back in his chair. “Or sometimes just an expression could be a dead giveaway—a look. Maybe you would see that in the other pictures…”
“Then I want them. Why aren’t they included with these?”
He rocks back and forth in his chair. “Well…there’s printing costs involved. And the surveillance period was up yesterday.”
I shrug my shoulders. “So I’ll just pay you for the printing costs.”
“There would be labor costs involved too, so you’ll have to purchase another surveillance period.”
“Wait, wait. Do you mean I have to pay you another fifteen hundred dollars just to hand me over some more photos?”
The P.I. sat up in his chair. “We could charge it to your credit card. Peace of mind is priceless.”
I shake my head at his hopeful expression. “No thanks.” I feel like an idiot for hiring a detective. If I’m going to get my suspicions confirmed about my wife cheating on me, then I need to see something more incriminating then this. All these pictures did was make me more confused. I want to grab the P.I.’s collar and pull him across the desk. Instead, I exhale loudly, stand up, and reach out to shake his hand. “Thank you for your services.”
He stands and grasps my hand. “We have a discount package where you can get two extra weeks of surveillance.”
As we shake hands, my fingers tighten around his as I suppress another urge to snatch him by his shirt. I lock eyes with him. His smile fades as he begins to feel the pain. I quickly release his hand and take a deep breath. “Have a nice day,” I say stiffly as I turn to leave. I can picture him staring after me.
Unbelievable.
On my way home, I think about the GPS device. They told me that at the beginning of the investigation period, someone would come out at night and plant it in an inconspicuous place on her vehicle. The night they were to install it, I pictured someone wearing a black hoodie and slipping into our driveway at three in the morning, implanting the device, then stealing away. I stayed up late just to see if I could catch the person, but I eventually got sleepy and wandered off to bed.
Should I buy my own GPS?
When I get home, her car isn’t here, but her friend, Shantelle, is standing on the front porch. I wonder who told her that her long, blond wig was cute. It doesn’t look natural against her chocolate complexion. It also looks hot and itchy. As I approach her, I say, “She’s not home.”
“Oh, Okay,” she says. “Mind if I wait inside?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
Shantelle watches me slip my key into the doorknob. “You don’t like me, do you?”
I keep my eyes glued to the door and turn the key in the lock. “Why would you think that?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I dunno—you seem so abrupt with me sometimes.”
“I just have a lot on my mind,” I say. She just stands there, as if waiting for me to say something else. I look up at her. “I’ll let her know you stopped by.”
I watch her walk away. Shantelle is right. There are many times I walk into the room and she and my wife will stop talking. I don’t like that. I know they share secrets, and I don’t like anyone who’s involved with my wife keeping secrets from me.
I make my way inside the house. I walk down the hardwood floors of the hallway to our second bedroom. I had converted it into a home office. I close the door and look at the gigantic clutter of paperwork on my desk. My lips tighten at the thought of how this whole detective thing is taking me away from more important stuff. I push the paperwork to the side. Then I take out a journal of my wife’s comings, goings, and printouts of her phone records. Across the cover of the journal I had written, “How to Make Your Own House Repairs.” She would never look in here.
I compare the journal against the phone records and see where last Wednesday, she had told me she was going to the store. She had left the house at 5:23p.m. Her phone records show that two minutes after she had left the house, an outgoing call to 555-0574 had popped up. The call lasted exactly twenty-one minutes. At 5:46 p.m., she walked in the house empty handed and mumbled that the supermarket had run out of eggs.
We already had eggs in the fridge.
I spread the contents of the P.I.’s envelope across the desk and my eyes settle on the GPS report.
From the way the P.I. had explained it to me, the GPS device automatically turns on when it senses the car in motion. I have printouts that tell me whether her vehicle was traveling east or west, what street it was on, the addresses where she stopped, and how long she was there. Most of the GPS report shows places we went when we were together, but then there is an address that keeps popping up that I’m not familiar with:
5233 Cameedo Ave.
If I understand this correctly, the GPS report shows that her car traveled to this address twice this week. The first time, the car was stopped there for twenty-four minutes. The second time, which was yesterday’s entry I was studying, was for sixty-three minutes. Her phone records show numerous calls to the home phone number that traces to that address. It was the number that kept popping up whenever she’d say she was going to the supermarket.
I smile. Keeping a journal is genius.
I hear a door slam in the driveway. I wonder if the device is still installed on her car.
Moments later, I hear heels clicking on the hardwood floor. I shove the surveillance documents and photos into my desk drawer. She opens the door. Perched in red heels that look like safety hazards, she is dressed in a short skirt that makes me cringe. A tight top reveals cleavage that would get a nursing baby all worked up for a meal.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Work stuff.”
She rolls luminous, dark brown eyes to the ceiling. Her long lashes flutter. “I don’t know why I bothered asking. When are you not working?”
“I have to make enough money to pay off your credit cards,” I tell her, then I glance at what she’s wearing. “Going to happy hour again?”
“Meeting some girlfriends. I won’t be long.”
My eyes travel up and down her outfit. Just like the day we first met, her beauty clouds my thinking. And why does she feel the need to look sexy for other men? “And you’re wearing that?” I ask.
“I dressed like this before we got married.” She shrugs her shoulders. “You know how I am. I kinda like the attention it gets me.” She flings dark, wavy hair over her shoulder. “But it’s harmless, babe. I’ll be back later.” She turns and leaves.
I picture her staying until the Friday night party crowd comes in. I imagine her walking past men with their eyes following her. One might grab her hand and stop her…talk to her a bit. Then those long eye lashes would flutter, she’d smile, and money would pour out of their wallets. Strange men would be getting my wife tipsy…
I wait for about ten minutes, then I grab the car keys and head to Cameedo Avenue.
I pass by the house and see her coworker mowing the lawn. A BMW is in the driveway, but her car isn’t there. The first time I had met her coworker, they were having coffee in our kitchen. Her car was in the shop and she had asked him to give her a ride home, then invited him in. The yelling started after he had left. She found nothing wrong with some man all kicked back and relaxing with her in our house. She told me I was being totally unreasonable.
Another time when I was out of town, I came home to find the remains of a McDonald’s lunch for two on the nightstand. She told me she needed help moving something in the house and called her coworker over. She couldn’t wait until I got home? She found nothing wrong with eating lunch with him in our bedroom? She told me I was the unreasonable husband who needed to learn to trust his wife.
I slow down the car, eying the sleek, shiny BMW in the driveway. I cringe at the film of dust on the hood of my ten-year old Chevy. A sheen of sweat covers her coworker’s upper body. Show off. Why can’t he show some decency and put on a shirt? Does everyone really need to see his biceps and rippled stomach? I glance down at my pouch and keep driving.
For the rest of the week, I make a few more drive bys. Her car was never at his house and each time I didn’t see it, I felt guilty for not trusting her.
It’s Friday morning and I’m at home, gazing out the window of my office. I see someone in a black hoodie kneeling near the front of my wife’s car. He stands to his feet, looks left, then right, and slinks away from the car. Smooth as a shadow. I smile. I was right when I imagined how they would install a GPS on a car, but this time, they were removing it.
I promise myself I’ll work on that quarterly report today. I turn from the window and look at the work on my desk. I wonder how much a GPS costs, because these drive bys are very time consuming.
Moments later, I’m staring at my laptop with my mouth hanging open. Two hundred and fifty-five dollars for a GPS? Then I see another one for three hundred and twenty-nine dollars! And then they have the nerve to add ninety-nine cents?
I sit in front of the stack of reports, then my mind settles on Shantelle, my wife’s friend. Maybe if I can squeeze it out of her, she’ll tell me something. Maybe if I repeat some gossip my wife told me about her, she’ll get mad and tell me what my wife is hiding from me. That’s the thing about women. It’s so easy to turn them against each other…
I look at the reports from work once more. I lean towards my desk and study the GPS report again. Something isn’t right. An hour later, I’m still scrutinizing the report as if magically, dots will connect and an answer will jump out at me.
I lean my face against my hand and stare at the wall. We wallow in the filth of our suspicions, jealousies, and insecurities when we could be using all this mental energy and time towards more productive work. The phone rings. It’s my boss looking for the quarterly report that’s due today. I let the voicemail pickup.
I disgust myself.
I dial the P.I.’s office. When he answers, I don’t even bother to greet him. “She leaves for work at eight a.m.,” I say, “but the GPS report started picking up motion on her car at ten. Also, she and I went to visit my mother Tuesday evening and it doesn’t even show that her car was in motion then.”
“From my training,” he says, “the GPS not picking up motion indicates that the car didn’t move.” He tells me to hold.
I hear him talking to someone in the background, then he says to me, “I’ve been told that the GPS has been indicating some misfires.”
I frown. “Misfires?” My knee starts bouncing up and down. “Misfires? So does that explain why there is a two-day gap that shows no motion on her car when I know my wife has used the car every day for the past two weeks?”
The P.I. says something else to the guy in the background, then he says to me, “My GPS rep. says he has no idea why it did that.”
The pencil in my hand snaps in two. “Do you mean to tell me I paid you fifteen hundred dollars for a GPS system that’s not even accurate?”
“You paid three hundred for the GPS system, which was included in the price. The fifteen hundred was for everything: photos, surveillance, GPS—”
“I want my money back,” I say.
“It’s an electronic device. Sometimes electronic devices—”
“Why am I being charged for a defective electronic device?”
“I’m sorry, Randy,” he says. “Our services are nonrefundable.”
I glare at the phone. “You’re an asshole!”
“There’s no reason for name calling.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I say. “And make sure that GPS idiot is there too!”
When the phone rings again, I don’t bother to check the caller ID. I answer to hear my supervisor’s voice: He demands, “Where’s my quarterly report?”
“I—uh…..”
“I’ll give you the weekend,” he says tersely. “I’ve been more than generous in letting you work from home, but you’ve proven to me that you can’t get the job done there. If I don’t get my report by Sunday night, I’m going to start seeing you first thing every weekday morning just like all the other schmucks around here. Are we clear?”
“Yes sir.” I get up and pace the floor. Ideas race through my head:
Idea #1: I should sue those investigator morons.
Idea #2: take a hit on my wallet and buy a GPS.
Idea #3: screw with Shantelle’s head and trick her out of a confession.
Idea no #4: go the cheap route and follow my wife to work every morning.
Idea no #5: Take some yoga classes and stop obsessing about all of this.
Idea no #6: If you don’t trust your wife, leave. Simple as that.
Okay, so this last idea sounds like the best one, because if I felt the need to hire those P.I. morons, that’s a sign that I don’t need to be with her, right? Shouldn’t I only be with a woman who I trust? I raise my hands in the air. Why did I spend fifteen hundred dollars to realize that? Who’s the real moron here?
I stop pacing and rub my chin. “Do guys take yoga classes? I pace back and forth again.
I hear the front door close. I freeze. I race to the window. I see my wife getting into the car. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Yoga classes. Yoga classes. Get it together, Randy. She’s turned you into a mistrusting nutcase. “Is mistrusting a word? And when did I start talking to myself?” I hear the engine to her car start. I turn to my desk and see the car keys resting beside the stapler. Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Randy. I turn to the window again and notice that her car is turning left instead of right. I narrow my eyes. She always turns right out of the driveway when she leaves for work. I turn to look at my car keys again. I let out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t believe I’m doing this…”
***
As I follow my wife through the morning traffic, my heart beats like rain pattering on a tin can. I try to hang back so she doesn’t notice me in her rear-view mirror, but then I end up losing her. I slam both hands on the steering wheel, then I park at a convenience store to take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. I go inside, buy a beer, and then return to my car. As I sit in the driver’s seat, I tighten my hand around the cool, damp bottle. As if it had suddenly materialized in my hand, I stare at it in horror. “What am I doing? It’s eight in the morning!” I slip the dark brown bottle into the cupholder and stare at it some more, then I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes. “Get yourself together, Randy. If you keep this up, you will lose your job…”
My eyes pop back open. What if she went to Cameedo St? There’s different ways to get there. I restart the engine. Before I shift my car into reverse, I give myself a stern look in the mirror. “Randy, if your wife isn’t where you think she is, then let it go and drop this whole mess. Ok?” I point at myself in the rear-view mirror. “You’re probably just being paranoid. Get a grip, man!”
“Excuse me?” A teenager wearing a blue baseball cap and a puzzled expression stands outside of my driver’s door. I glare at him.
“Oh,” he says, “I’m sorry. I thought you were talking to me. You know, my dad used to yell at himself in the mirror. He’s got some big-time anger issues. You might want to talk to a professional…”
I frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Just sayin’…” He makes his way into the convenience store.
“Kids need to mind their own business,” I mutter as I shift the car in reverse, make my way out of the parking lot, and head to Cameedo St.
Like every other Friday, my wife’s coworker is mowing the grass, but what’s different this time is that my wife’s car is parked in the driveway. My heart starts doing that tin can thing again. I narrow my eyes. I don’t know whether to be relieved or heartbroken.
I pull into the driveway. He stops the mower and peers at me. “Randy?”
“Yep.” I make my way around the car. “I’m looking for my wife.”
He glances at the house. “She’s inside.”
“Well,” I look around. “That’s pretty obvious.”
A dog barks. Her coworker scratches his head, then looks at his feet.
“So what’s she doing in there?” I ask. “Making you coffee? Or did she bring you a Big Mac?”
He frowns. “Huh?”
“I came home one night to find some leftovers from McDonalds on my night stand. My wife told me the two of you were in the bedroom eating it.”
He looked alarmed. “In your bedroom? Naw, man. It wasn’t me. There’s nothing going on between me and your wife.”
I move closer and he backs away. He raises his hands in a helpless gesture. “Look man, if I was having an affair with your wife, I wouldn’t be out here mowing the lawn while she’s inside.”
“So why is she in there?”
His eyes wander over his lawn. “I’ll go inside and get her.”
“So you’re not going to invite me in?”
“I’ll only be a minute. Just wait out here. I’ll go get her.” He rushes inside.
Thirty seconds later is thirty seconds too long. I make my way up the porch steps, let myself into his house, and follow his voice down the hallway. I can hear him saying, “Why did you tell him we were chilling on the bed eating McDonalds? You could have gotten my ass kicked!”
I hear my wife’s voice: “I can’t believe he’s here!”
Then his voice again: “I told you to stop coming over here until my sister finds her own place. I knew this would happen! I knew it!”
At the end of the hall, I see him standing in the doorway. I push past him to see my wife in bed, clutching the sheets over her breasts.
I turn outraged eyes to him and clench my fists.
He backs away and waves his hands in the air. “It’s not what you think. This isn’t my room!”
My wife jumps out of bed. As she swipes her clothes from the floor, I notice a blond wig on the nightstand. A dark-skinned woman emerges from the connecting bathroom. Steam fills the doorway. She has a towel wrapped around her. I notice a tight stocking cap over her hair. At first, I don’t recognize her. Confused, I look at the blond wig on the nightstand again. My head swivels towards the woman again. “Shantelle?” Disbelieving eyes dart to my wife, her coworker, then to Shantelle again. Shantelle backs into the bathroom. I rush towards her, but Shantelle disappears into the steam filled bathroom again and slams the door. I hear the lock on the other side click.
I see red.
I slam my fist against the surface of the door. “What the hell?” I scream. “You’re sleeping with my wife?”
I feel someone’s hands on my shoulders. I shake them off. I continue to slam my fists against the bathroom door. “You slut!” I scream.
As my wife’s coworker tries to pull me away from the door, he yells, “That’s my sister! Don’t touch her or you’ll have to deal with me!”
“She’s a whore!” I turn and shove him away from me. He stumbles to the floor. My eyes settle on my wife. “They’re both disgusting whores.”
My wife stands there with her clothes clutched against her heaving chest, eyes wide, apologies all over her pretty face. I clench my fists and struggle to calm my breathing. I look at her coworker as he gets up from the floor and straightens his clothes. I feel like he’s the only person in the room whose ass I can kick and still be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow. I drag in a deep breath…then slowly release. I inhale again and close my eyes for a second. I relax my hands. Rain drops against the tin can stops pattering. Then I do what I should have done a long time ago.
Leave.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deep Water
For someone who couldn’t swim, I loved deep water. I relished the soothing feeling of being completely surround by its liquid depths. Floating was so relaxing to me. Sometimes I would immerse myself in the deep end of the pool, hold onto the side, and stretch my arm out so that only my fingertips kept me from going under. I was always tempted to let go.
Other times, at the beach, I would wade out until the water reached my shoulders, seemingly oblivious to the danger of undercurrents that could suck me away from the sand underneath my feet. If only I could just let go and surrender to the feel of drifing forever without a care in the world.
Sometimes, I would fantasize about floating on my back with my eyes closed, and when I opened them, I would be in the Bahamas, or Jamacia, or maybe even Africa. If only I didn’t need air, I could completely submerse myself for hours. Like a fish decorated with a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors, I could go on a journey of discovery through the water’s cool depths.
The water that day looked refreshing at Quartz Lake, so I paused before pulling off my t-shirt and shorts. My eyes skimmed the lake. Today was another one of those days when I would enjoy my favorite feeling: floating.
“Don’t go too far,” my brother cautioned. “You know I can’t swim, and there’s no life guard out here.”
“Okay,” I said as I kicked off my flip flops. I could already feel my heartbeat quicken at the anticipation of enjoying the lake. “I start swimming lessons on Monday. It would be pretty ironic for me to drown three days before I start taking classes at the YMCA!”
My brother didn’t return my smile. He only frowned. “That’s not funny.” He lowered himself on a blanket and grabbed a magazine. “Just stay in the shallow part!”
I waded in up to my waist, my eyes glued to the rippling surface.
It beckoned to me.
With my toes, I felt for the mushy earth beneath me. I slowly crept forward. The water rose above my navel. I yearned to point my hands forward and let my body follow, slicing through the water like experienced swimmers do. Instead, my feet continued to cautiously move along the bottom of the lake. The water rose to my chest. My brother called me from the shore. “Leonie, that’s too far!”
I turned, heady with excitement. “But I can still feel the—” The soft, wet soil gave way from beneath my feet and dissolved into nothing. The sound of a rushing river invaded my ears and violated my senses. My arms flailed about me. I stretched open my mouth. I tried to suck in air. Instead, water rushed inside, tunneled itself down my esophagus, and filled my lungs. When I coughed, it felt like fire had torn into my chest. My hands reached, grasping at nothing but flimsy air and the liquid depths around me. Finally, I was able to push myself upwards. My face broke the shimmering surface and I saw my brother, horror stricken. He looked helpless as he stood there so far away. I sank again, then sucked in more water. My lungs burned with unbelievable intensity. Why did it hurt so much? I resurfaced. I saw my brother again. He was closer. His mouth was moving but I could not hear words, only water rumbling in my ears. I went under again. I reached for the bubbles that floated away from me. Shimmering pockets of air broke the churning ceiling of water.
The glistening, bubbling surface of the water began slipping away from me.
Suddenly, my panic subsided. What happened to my fear? Even the burning in my chest began to melt away. I no longer felt like fighting. The water darkened around me. An unusual calm embraced me. It held me in such a state of fascination, I was compelled to surrender…surrender to the peace of the water’s depths. My eyes fixated on the surface, translucent above me. Although it seemed to move further away from me, I had the odd sensation that I was floating. The liquid surrounding me on all sides began to feel so beautiful that I smiled. I closed my eyes…and let go…
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IMAGE CREDITS:
Purple rocking chair by Freepick.com (AI generated image):
https://www.freepik.com/psd/purple-rocking-chair
Blue water with light and bubbles by robertsrob/iStock by Getty Images:
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/water-gm543810126-9764739
Man with envelope by LoMar Radio 432/Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-holding-brown-envelope-14399326/
IBring 