Quick Fiction: Hold Your Breath

HOLD YOUR BREATH
Fifty feet underwater, cellphone in hand, Martin wondered whom he could call. Why had he felt compelled to show off? After Jane had dropped her phone overboard, he'd breathed deeply and had descended swiftly, finding it fairly easily amidst fish and coral. What a champion retriever! Now, his chest clenched, and the weight of the water pressed down as he looked up, up at the diveboat, up at Jane floating, peering downward. He held out the phone. Why not--he thought, pumping his legs--why not return in style? And yet now those chest muscles seized, his throat convulsed, his vision funneled, and his finned feet faltered. How long had he been under? Oh, he'd make the surface, oh, though not in any style he'd wish remembered. I'm a desperate dog, he thought, a dog digging, digging, digging. Another part of his mind calmly queried, "A desperate dog?"

That's my favorite of the quick fictions I've written so far. I'm still not sure how effective my writing is, but I know I enjoy the effort and the ambition.