A Swimming Sensation

• Geordie Spenceley, Grade 7, Marsden High School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

Butterflies lurk in my stomach. My Mum makes the final turn. I hop out. ‘Speedy Gonzalez’ enters the doors of victory, chasing gold.
Tension fills the arena. Bang! I shoot up into the air. Splash! I break the surface. My legs pump at speed. Each stroke is like catapults flinging boulders.
“Ben, Ben, Ben!” chants my school, Urnbruster High. Metres decrease, rapidly, at break-neck speed. Lamborghini's are history I am the new definition of fast.
I strain my body, reaching out for the concrete wall. I firmly plant my hand, relieving all the pain from my body. I peek my head out of the water revealing no one surrounding me. Checking the time board, 23.97 seconds beam in large orange numbers.
“Yes!” I pump a fist in the air for I have just achieved mission impossible.
At night, I can’t go to sleep. Nightmares haunt me. “Mum, slow down, we'll be on time, trust me.” “Mum, please slow down.”
“Ben, this is your Grandfather’s funeral and we can’t miss it.” The thought of my Grandfather’s death is horribly depressing. He is greater than gold and my swimming motivation.
“Mum the speed limit is 80, not 120!” Turning, Mum faced me, staring deeply into my eyes.
“Ben, stop distracting me, I know what I'm doing here.”
“Mum...the road!”
SCREECH! Glass fragments fly every direction. My mind goes black. I wake. Heat sears my eyes. Flames dance around me. A metallic taste comes to my mouth and pain engulfs me. A metre away from me is Mum, saturated in blood and cuts. She mouths three words. “Wake up Ben.”
Beep, Beep! I slam my alarm. I manage to roll out of bed.
“Hey. Honey, what’s wrong?” My mother’s soothing voice erupts. She could probably tell from the way I appear.
“Nothing… just more nightmares.” I mutter. I am stopped in my tracks by a phone call.
“Got it,” my Mum blurts. In a few seconds my Mother is bawling out tears, her eyes red, full of grief and sadness. “What’s up Mum?” I embrace her with a hug that would normally fix every problem, I get drenched with tears.
She manages to croak out a few words.
“Grandpa dead, Funeral today.” My heart shatters like a broken mirror.
I hop into the back seat of our car. We speed onto the motorway in a flash. “Mum, slow down, we'll be on time, trust me,” I say.
“Ben, this is your Grandfathers funeral and we can’t miss it.”
“Mum the speed limit is 80, not 120!” Turning, Mum faces me, staring into my eyes.
“Ben, stop distracting me.”
“Mum...the road!” SCREECH!
My body feels a cool current as if I were back in the pool. The smell of chlorine floods my brain…