Walking In Water

• Rachael Knight, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2009

A faint damp, but warm earthly smell, with a hint of spice filled my nostrils. My head felt heavy and giddy, like it had been detached from my body, and was slowly rolling down a hill, hitting all the pot holes and rocks as it went. The taste of iron filled my mouth and throat. That’s when I realised; I couldn’t breathe. My body felt far away, I wanted to sit up and cough out the blockage, but I couldn’t; some where between my brain and my nerve system the message went astray. I wanted to open my eyes and see but I was lost in the never ending blackness that engulfed my vision.
“Pippa, Pip, Pip!” An urgent far away voice called.
Who was Pippa? Why won’t they leave her alone, she was drowsy, she wanted sleep. Then it occurred to her, slowly but surely. She was this girl, she was Pippa. The voice was growing fainter and further away. She tried to reach out into the dark, but her fingers found nothing. She was falling, deep into the nothingness. Clutching at thin air, she snatched for footing, but her feet found a nonexistent ledge.
“Wait come back, come back!” she screamed.
Gradually my senses began to return, starting with my hearing. The slow woozy pulsating de boom… boom… boom of my restarting heart thrummed into my ears. A sound like a whistle being blown softly pierced the quiet drums. Next I began to feel my body; the tingles started at the tips of my toes and spread up my legs, through my stomach and chest, then up through my arms to the tips of my fingers. Something prickled my back and made it itch, it was grass, I was outside? This doesn’t make any sense?
I could then finally open my heavy eye lids but not without great difficulty. Everything was distorted and out of focus, I could vaguely make out the face of my hero. He had tanned skin and muddy brown eyes with a metro razored hair cut in midnight black.
“Dolcezza” said a velvet whisper.
It took me a while to register where I was; which was in the paddock lying on my back in the desiccated grass. The smell I smelt before was the silage and the whistle sound I herd was the crickets. So now that I’ve figured where I am I have to figure out how I got here and why?
I was starting to lose it now, my brain couldn’t process this, the black was creeping back like thick rain clouds coming to invade the sun. I could only just make out the sound of sirens coming up the road before a stabbing pain washed over my whole body


“Gaha…” I was all I could gasp out before I gurgled up a warm liquid, that spilled up over my lips and ran down to the back of my neck into the thirsty grass.


* Italian: sweetie/darling