Numb

We wade in, jumping one after another so we won’t get singed. We are intent in our purpose, or, at least I am.

“I she good one?” He asks impatiently.

“No, she won’t break.” I reply, “Come farther in, there’s one waiting for us.”

I can’t feel anything below my waist as the paralysis sets in.

“A little father,” I urge, “A little more and we’ll find her.”

I’ve told him a dozen times what she looks like but I do so again, more out of habit than purpose.

“When you see her you’ll be struck with the sudden, deadly, fear that you might not whether her. She just might take you out. She breaks as she reaches you in a thunderously loud chorus.”

I recite, my words lost in the salt of the latest onslaught,

“You have no choice but to go with her wherever her whim leads you. The cold will pierce your soul leaving you completely one with her. As she pushes you farther and faster than you ever thought you could go.”

My brother cries out in pain against the cold.

“And when she leaves you, " I begin to conclude, “you will leave her knowing that you have lived to your fullest. You have been alive, if only for those few brief moments.”

“There shes is!” My brother shouts as we see a familiar swell on the horizon.