Jumping for air is a way to catch a friends hand. (SWC)

This is a story where I have to thank some of my childhood friends. We were all monkeying around and something happened.

The story is something funny now when I remember it. When I was little monkey I was in a tight group of friends and we did a lot of funny, dangerous things or on some occasions really stupid stuff. I'm looking back at those things and I'm nodding my head in disappointment.

The cause!

One of my friend's parents he is a fisherman. He is leaving home for weeks to catch fish. Not just any, but the most expensive that you can find on the market. To help him on the job he has some of the best gear for this profession. One of those items is a little sphere artifact. You activate it by touching it to your forehead and it makes you see creatures behind a wall or if it's really foggy or if they are in distance. You can't see them like they are in front of you but it makes you see them like a faded light blue glow of the creature's shape.

This artifact helped him to see if below his ship the fish that he was fishing for where there. One day my friend "borrowed" his father's artifact and broth it outside and we began to play with it. We played for a little bit of time and then not to attract some of our parent's attention we went on the outskirts of the village to a lake to have more fun and experiment with it or just do whatever we want.

The incident.

Like I said we were at the lake and this particular lake had a deck that was not yet finished and a shed on the land before the deck starts. At the end of the deck, there were like 10 pillars that were not covered, they were just poking the water and we were standing there with the artifact and were watching the fishies.

We each took a turn on handling it and have it a go at experience it, but before we know it we got bored. My friend took it and put it on the shore to be safe and not to lose it because hi's father would have "killed" him.

After that, we decided to play tag on the pillars. Now I know what are u going to say, that this is really dumb and shouldn't do that, but like I said we were little monkeys with little monkeys brains, so we did it.

The result is simple, we were hopping on the pillars like happy little monkeys and it took a while, but as soon as we had more fun we were paying less attention to hope safe and one of us slipped and plunged into the dark freezing water.

You are right, it was me and at that time I didn't know how to swim.

I remember that when I fell I saw all of my friend's faces how they changed from happy to terrified. Mine was no different, it quickly changed from laughter to scared and in that moment I had to be thinking that this is not going to end well.

My luck was that the deck didn't go far into the lake and it wasn't that deep. When I reached the bottom I said to myself that I knew I didn't know how to swim so I started to paddle my hands as hard as could to reach the surface. I barely touched the surface, but it wasn't enough.

I lost all my air because I tried to call for my friends in desperation and begun to get back to the bottom of the lake. When I reached the bottom again I said I'm not going to lose this battle even if I had my mouth full of water so I spring my knees and jumped to reach the surface again.

I reached the surface and got a bit of air but I was so panicky that my hands were everywhere trying to catch some of my friend's hands. Again got the bottom, but this time I had hope build into myself that this time I will succeed.

Got together and jumped again with all the strength that I could gather. I reached the surface and grabbed the hand of my friend Crino. Other friends grabbed me from other pillars that they were on and pulled me up. I climbed on one of the pillars and after that went to the covered part of the deck.

I was saved.

The aftermath

A funny thing happened while I was in the water that my close friend told me about that now I smile when I remember. A friend in the group use to stutter, he overcame it, but back then he used to have it. It was not serious but he did stutter sometimes. When I was in the water, that friend was going like: "Yo To-ppp-popo wha-wha-wha-what are u-u-u-u do-oo-iin theerre!". Crino was yelling at him: "Stop laughing! He is drowning! Help me catch him and pull him out!" It's one of the funny things that happened that day.

The thing is now that I was safe, but my clothes were soaking wet and I was late for dinner and if I have gone home my parents would beat me to smithereens. Crino had a great idea. I should go to the shed strip naked and give them the clothes to dry up. It was a good plan so that's what we did.

I remember next that I just cloth myself and gone home, but not before I waited in the back of the house for a bit more, because I was scared of going into the house, because of the beating. I didn't know what my crazy parents would do if they see me dressed like that.

In those moments behind the house would just joke with my friends that would like to go back to the lake and jump this time in it, because I didn't want to confront them.

It is funny how it all ended and if you are wondering, yes I did receive a massive beating, but my parents would never know that in that day a had a close experience with death.