August MacArthur was 21 feet deep. August MacArthur could not breathe the air that wasn’t in the water that was in the ocean, or the sea, or the pool of water in the bathroom sink. August MacArthur lived in a house in the middle of the houses in a neighborhood surrounded by neighborhoods, surrounded by strip-malls, surrounded by hard faced buildings of corner offices, cubicles, water fountains.
August MacArthur worked in a cubicle surrounded by cubicles surrounded by offices right on the roads. He walked these roads from his house to the hard faced building, to strip-mall, to neighborhood, through neighborhood, to house — his house. August MacArthur got his competent paycheck and walked through neighborhoods to strip-mall, where he bought all he needed to fill his rooms, cabinets, refrigerator. Tomato paste, beans, vodka, yogurt, instant coffee, milk, bread. Chairs, bed, coffee table, pictures, dishes, spoons, knives.
August MacArthur dreamed his death last night in the cold, lonely water: full of nothing. Full and abundant with nothing to speak of, nothing to pay for, and nothing to capture for a popular print in a black, wooden frame. 21 feet deep and grasping for the hand of someone not at the surface. Someone absent in the ocean or the sea or the pool of water in the bathroom sink. Holding breath in his dying, emptying (somehow expanding) lungs; kicking upward to fill them. Kicking, flailing, falling down upward in the blue ocean, or sea, or bathroom-sink-pool of his corporate cubicle. To the air — liberally flowing through the three giant windows of the corner office. Filling his pockets, rooms, (somehow expanding) lungs, refrigerator.
August MacArthur woke up spitting water out of his newly capped teeth. Onto the sheets of his own king-sized bed, the blankets, the pillows tucked under his head. He sat up, rubbing his wet eyes and tilting the water out of his ears. He walked to his bathroom, to the sink at the mirror, looking into two eyes of the blue of the ocean or the sea. Or the pool of water in the bathroom sink, over which he hung his head, dripping water — and a few drops of vodka — from his teeth, ears, nose. Filling the pool of water in the bathroom sink or the sea or the ocean and looking up into his reflection and down into his reflection and upside-down into his spoons, into knives. Drip, drip, filling the sink, sinking onto the floor, with no one and nothing to catch him but the pool of water in the bathroom sink or the sea or the ocean.