Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Summer 2022 Edition dives into the theme Swimming. Read smooth, flowing writing that explores slipping into the water and finding yourself. These stories and poems take you to pools, lakes, rivers, oceans, and more as writers sink into the memories and sensations of swimming. Capsule Stories Summer 2022 Edition: Swimming is the perfect book to read at the waterside after a quick dip on a sweltering summer day.

Swimming

You go to the edge of the water and wade in, slowly at first. The waves lap at your toes, then your calves, then your thighs and hips and stomach until you give in and let the water carry you. The water gently cups your body, lifts you, and you feel weightless for the first time in years. The stress sinks away until it's just you and your body and the water.

You feel strong as your body pulls you smoothly through the water, farther from shore. You remember the games you used to play as a child, seeing how long you could hold your breath, diving for toys in the deep end, racing your cousins across the pool. Big breath in. And then you let yourself grow heavy, sink further and further from the surface until your feet hit the bottom. No one can see you down here. It's different underwater, quieter and smooth, everything muffled and distorted. You glide around, discovering a whole new world, until your lungs are screaming and you push off toward the surface to come up for air.

You float and float, the waves washing over your skin, the sun beating down, your mind on nothing at all, until at last it's time to go. You vow to come back again soon, to return to this feeling, to return to the water.