The indoor pool is semi-dark. There is no natural light, and the artificial lights are high overhead and underpowered. There are lights in the pool as well, it feels as though I'm swimming at night. The blue tint is relaxing and people are conversing in soft mummers. There are a lot of people in the pool area but it doesn't feel crowded.
I feel terrible, I'm forgetting to do something here in Texas. I'm somehow letting everyone at the pool down, all of Texas maybe. I swim to the edge and hastily pull myself out of the pool. I don't bother drying off or changing and walk out to my car.
The sun is too bright as I exit the gym. I'm driving back to Michigan, all in one go, no stopping for anything. The temperature is fine in my car but it should be too hot, even with the windows down. I drive out of Texas, through Oklahoma, and into Missouri. I've been driving six hours without stopping, even for gas. Halfway through Missouri I realize that I left my phone back at the Texas gym. I turn around and drive back to the gym. I don't stop for gas on the way back, and the sun is still high in the sky even though I've been driving for over 12 hours.
Everyone is still at the pool. A couple of my friends are happy to see me, others greet me with disgust, they tell me I should have stayed gone. I ignore my critics and try to relax in the pool. It's L-shaped and it's deep everywhere, over 7 feet at it's shallowest. Two girls my age are trying to kick off one side of the L and coast to the other side of the L without surfacing. They come very close to accomplishing their goal, and I decide to give it a shot.
I take a deep breath, push myself down as far as I can and push off. I easily make the other wall, and turn around underwater and kick off again. It's exhilarating and I perform the exercise multiple times. Relishing the burn in my lungs and how my leg muscles coil and release energy. The sensation in my thighs is particularity odd, and I figure it's why I can cross the distance so easily.
After exhausting my legs, I aimlessly float around the pool. My phone rings so I hope out of the pool, towel off and answer my phone. My father is calling. One of our family friends had their youngest child kidnapped while on a walk to Dairy Queen. As we are both detectives we decide to fly out to their Texas ranch and find their missing baby.
The family meets us at the airport, the mother and father are crying, their baby daughter has been kidnapped, or so they think, by their next door neighbors. Both families have over five children and dad remarks that they could do with one less kid, but it does not placate the distraught couple. I remind him that they are family friends and that detectives love a good mystery.
We drive over to their neighbors house and kids are running around everywhere. It is mayhem at this rundown two-story farmhouse. The porch is grey and dilapidated but has several antique gasoline pumps. My father inquires where, where the pumps were acquired and if any of them are for sale. Sadly none are for sale but we're invited to inspect them. As we peruse the outside of each pump we talk with the neighbors. They are nice, genuine people, and we're all getting along famously. I'm hoping that they didn't kidnap our friends daughter, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled. I notice that one of the skins on the middle pump are ajar. My father being a consummate collector values the pump mechanism inside each unit, as complete pumps fetch more at auctions. I open the pump and discover it's covered in cobwebs. While not unusual to find animal dwellings inside these old pumps these webs are unnaturally thick and almost completely cover the pump's innards.
I notice the web shutter, something has been caught in this monstrous web, some poor animal has fallen into the web. Then we heard the crying. The baby was caught in the web!! We all clawed at the web, trying to free the child, but the preternatural web would not yield. Not only was the baby caught in the web it was also encased in a small jeweled sarcophagus. A small rubber mallet has proven useful in a variety of situations so my father always brings it with him on investigations. He hammered from the bottom and I pulled from the top and after five minutes of working the sarcophagus we finally wrenched it free. Somehow the baby was fine, whatever beast wove the web was nowhere to be found, so we all shared in the merriment of the moment.
I had to be going though, I was needed at the soccer tryouts in England. I flew to Manchester and suited up for tryouts as a goalie for Man U. The fist part of the tryouts were similar to the end stages for Legends of the Hidden Temple. There was an obstacle course with random pieces of a bicycle were scattered and needed to be assembled before moving on to the next challenges. Tryouts groups consisted of teams of five, a goalie, two defenders, and two forwards. My team completed out bicycle and I moved on to goalie qualifying. The forwards had to dribble the ball down a hillside slalom course before shooting on me. I dove to stop the first shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment