Nothing but dark blue....

My breath moves in slow, measured increments. I hear every aspect of it. Sound moves 4 times faster through water than air, I've learned. The bubbles from my exhale mask my vision every few seconds; this takes some getting used to, like adjusting to the blur of windshield wipers when learning to drive. I check my air gauge - only 500 psi. So I swim over to my buddy, and motion in scuba sign language: I point at myself, tap my fist over my heart, and move my fingers back and forth between my regulator and theirs. She knows that I've just said, "I am low on air. I need to share air with you." In slow, underwater motion now we arrange to share air, and slowly flap our fins until we break the surface.
Every Tuesday night I spend my time floating, swimming, and breathing underwater for hours on end. That's right, I'm in a scuba diving class. When I'm down there, I feel suspended in the middle of nothingness, and like all the rest of life is suspended with it, in nothingness. All that matters is my breathing, and the small air pocket around my eyes.
Finally, tomorrow, after many hours of practicing drills like the air-share ascent, I will complete my basic course in scuba diving. I will be 22 and scuba certified, looking at nothing but dark blue.

How is a successful rescue defined, anyway?

Last Monday was Labor Day. I labored towards saving a bird that day, a little bird with a broken leg I fondly named Petey. I kept Petey in a box, despite the fact that the campus policeman said we should throw him in the garbage. You just can't throw a living creature in the garbage! I thought. You just can't throw a living creature in the garbage! I said to my roommate. So she let me take Petey home. That night I fed him a variety of foods, since I didn't yet know what he liked to eat best. I gave him some bread crumbs, some rice krispies, and some cantelope. And a little tub of water. That night he didn't seem to eat any of the food, which made me sad. Then the next day Petey died. It was distressing. We put the box on the balcony, so that we didn't have a dead bird in the apartment, and because we weren't quite ready for the funeral yet. A week later, my roommates were not happy that Petey was still in the box, dead, on the balcony; and so to please the crowd I dispensed with the funeral, and placed him gently in the dumpster. That is very different from throwing a living creature in the garbage, I told myself over and over. I told my roommate too, and my friend that carried Petey to the dumpster with me. And yet, somehow, it still felt wrong...