Water slide

Dan has just disappeared and the red light is flashing. I’m looking at the low ceiling immediately ahead of me, whilst watching for the green light out of the corner of my eye. Suddenly I realise it’s there and oddly I can't remember how long it's been there so that part of me wonders how much time passed between the light changing and me starting to move. I lurch forward, six foot one (and a half) of grown man with a propensity for slipping over, making his way through the ankle deep water, stooping under the low ceiling. 

I need to get into a sitting position as the floor starts to slope and I can’t see how I’m going to do this from my crouch and I do something awkward with my left leg that results in me momentarily diverting my attention to consider whether or not I’ve just broken my left big toe. As it happens, this distraction enables the more physically competent – if rarely accessed – part of my brain to effect the required manoeuvre and I find myself on my back, sliding downwards. 

With a newfound yet unwarranted confidence, I insouciantly lace my fingers behind my head, just before I ride up the side wall so that gravity can then dump me uncomfortably down onto my left hip. Ouch. I’m not sure what to do with my hands now. I think about putting them by my side in the style of someone competing in the luge and I’m reminded, unhappily, of my old riff that this was the only sport in which you couldn’t tell whether someone was participating against their will. 

I’m on my back again now, my arms settled on doing something ineffectual above my head, and I’m just thinking optimistically and ludicrously that maybe I’ve got the hang of all this when a tight turn unexpectedly submerges my head, and I worry briefly about drowning before I find I’ve slowed down, enough to breathe and feel back in control but also enough to worry about the person behind me – no doubt more streamlined – coming down feet first into my head.

But that concern disappears as the floor drops away abruptly and everything suddenly accelerates all over again and I consciously take a deep breathe as insurance against further submersions. One turn is so tight yet long that I actual complete a revolution; onto my right side, my stomach, my left, and – oof! – back looking at the ceiling before I find myself on the final descent in the open air, straight but steeper again. I’m about due to let the air out of my lungs and take another breath but I only complete the first part of this procedure before slamming into a wall of water, about two litres of which forcibly enter my sinuses making the front of my face feel like it’s going to explode outwards. 

I stand up, disoriented and unsteady but loosely supported by the swirling water, gasping for air and tearing off my goggles to face Dan, Abi, and the miniMinx. “That,” I say “was bloody fantastic! Let’s do it again.”

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