STUDENTEREKSAMEN ENGELSK A-NIVEAU

Side 4 af 11 sider
75 valves in the equipment hissed and bubbles shot out and detonated. He jolted his arms
and legs about, though he knew that if he didn't relax them he'd get cramp and drown -
then again, if he let them go free he'd sink anyway.
They were over the reef. A large ray ghosted across, a stealth bomber winging its way
back into the depths. To one side was the deep, a soft blue that went down for ever, for
80 more than nine hundred metres to form one side of a gigantic trench, a gargantuan
continuation of the African rift valley. Jon tried not to look sideways, but his head turned
despite him.
You could lose yourself in that, swallowed up and gone for ever, a speck vanishing in
the blue without sound or ripple. Buddhists talked of opening yourself up to emptiness -
85 well, here it was next to him, but he didn't want to commune with it, he wanted to keep
it as far away as possible.
The trio stopped. Jon's heart hammered away, trying not to sink any further. Berto
was making signals. It was time for Jon to take his air supply out and insert Brian's
spare mouthpiece. Fuck.
90 Jon saw Brian hold the mouthpiece out in slow motion. He would have to go through
with this. In a blur he tore his air supply out, crammed in the new one, blew the excess
water out and sucked desperately.
No air. Water, solid water, unbelievable. Gel flowing in and solidifying, the others
hovering in supplication. Motionless. Another desperate try, and there was nothing other
than water in his world. He was drowning, drowning for ever. Time was away and
somewhere else.
He exploded upwards. The frothing ceiling was a long way away and he wasn't going
to make it.
Berto grabbed him and thrust in a mouthpiece just before Jon broke the surface,
100 gasping for life, clawing in air. Brian had handed him the mouthpiece upside down. It
was useless the wrong way up. None of them had noticed in time. Back on land Jon
bought Berto a beer. Berto took a sip and angled his shades towards Jon.
"You know, you are very close to your panic level underwater."
"Lack of moral fibre, I'm afraid."
"Yip, yip, yip,YEEP."
He looked at Berto's shades. At first there was nothing and then he saw himself
staring, wide-eyed. On the walk back the voice taunted him
"Yellow, yellow, yellow. Yellow as the desert sand."
The next day they followed the same routine, lugging the air cylinders and other kit
110 on to the boat before casting off. Jon looked up from the blue water, past the buildings
on the shoreline to the desert mountains. It wasn't a bad sight, a good vista for his last
day on earth.
As he stepped out into the sea Jon cursed himself for going through all this again.
Underwater he stuck close to Berto, though he didn't see how Berto would be able to
save him if he had a cardiac arrest or asthma attack Why did he have to torture himself?