today is may 2nd 2011.
osamin bin ladin is dead.

what do I want to write about today
i am at a different library
liberty library as jeff is closed.

i'll have to use my imagination as the lady
next to me is a little retarded or demented as
she is pounding the keyboard. where is my compassion?




meghan dove into the water.
it was cool but not cold.

she came up from underneath and treaded water. she got her bearings in relationship to the sailboat and saw her
two best friends sitting on the bow. meghan smiled and waved for them to come in.

she didn't wait for an answer and then dove under again.

she held her breath to see how far she could go down and
then came back up and blew the water out of her mouthpiece

she adjusted her blue goggles with a shake. she put her fact to the
water and she could see perfectly to the bottom of the lagoon.
the underneath view was crystal clear.
it was about 30 feet to the bottom.

she smiled and dove once more
this time going down about ten feet
she let the air out of her lungs slowly
while her blue eyes grew wider as a school of
black and white angelfish came swimming by and she
put her hand through them and in perfect unison
they broke formation and darted in the other
direction.

she had cleaned the lenses of her goggles with crest toothpaste
just like they had told her in beginner's snorkle class
and she could see for a clear 150 feet in front of her.

it was breathtaking.
and she was having a lot of fun
she adjusted the mouthpiece of her new snorkel and
started to swim to the top
the blue fins she had on matched her eyepiece but more
than that they enabled her to cut through the water
in no time,

she came up for air.
pulled off her mask and smiled
she was pleased with herself.

she was doing well with her swimming and
snorkeling.

she gave herself a mental pat on the back.

she could come up for air
and dive and then come up again
blow the water out of her snorkle and still
put her face to the water and watch the underwater scene below her.

once again she dove
she decided this was one of the best things she had ever done.

again she swam to the surface
only this time she jumped into the air
when she came up

her arms were extended to north and south
and her fingers were flayed out

in one quick look she turned her head from left to right
shook her hair so that the red flew in all directions.

she closed her eyes
put the palms of her hand together and
dove again.

this time while she was
under she looked up and she could see the warm day through
the suface of the water.
she saw that her two friends marion and
laura were holding hands and jumping in. they landed not
ten feet from her.

the two of them each had a camera and they began taking
pictures of each other
making silly faces as only teenagers can,


they did a smiley face with their free hand
and she waved back.

they were her best friends
and they had been roomates at benson's school for girls the last
three years.

benosn's was a prestigeous colored girl's upper class finishing school
in greggsville a quiet part of the south and
meghan had been lucky to get in on a scholorship.


meghan swam to the top and squinted at the sun
by the looks of the way the sun was in the sky it
was about 12:30 and they had been here about two
hours already

laura's father had allowed the girls to take the
sailboat out because they had taking a sailing
course and a safety course and they were all 17
and responsible young ladies.

meghan could tell by the position of the sun that it was was reaching its peakness of warmth
and it would continue to get hot for the next two hours
and then finally start to cool after 2 o'clock.




they would head back for frank's inlet about 4.

they had all afternoon to spend swimming and snorkeling
in this perfect lagoon that laura's father had found on
one of the old charts in the town's antiquated sea museum
that old mrs. morgan kept and that she said her daddy had
kept and dated back to the civil war days

they had come to the lagoon by sailboat, with laura's father's
permission
and so far it had been a perfect day.

the wind was just right and they had used the three sails
to get here so they hadn't had to use the motor at all.
it was a perfect day thought meghan
one that she and her two friends would never forget.

she smiled to herself
and started to swim to the boat.
her stomach was starting to growl
she was getting hungry and wanted to get at the goodies
that she and the girls had packed.

there wasn't a breeze in the air
and meghan found the boat ladder and began to pull herself up.

she reached the deck stood up and the air and the sun just dried
her body in one quiet quick moment.

the water on her body just became beads and then trickled down her long legs and
evaporated.

she placed her snorkle and goggles on the chair adjacent to the boat ladder
and held the fins in her left hand which she had taken off previously while
still in the
water and before she climbed the ladder.

it was so quiet she thought. it was just a passing thought and she
didn't think too much about it now, later she would go over this time
and remember everything about the ten minutes before the storm.

she proceeded to pull the food chest out
from under the long narrow boat seat when she heard laura and marion
swimming towards the boat.

she looked up
and saw a black twisting cloud about a mile away
she put her hands to her eyes and squinted
it was black and it was winding and it was getting bigger

marion and laura had also seen the black formation and
were swimming as fast as they could to the boat.

meghan gripped the handrail of the boat
as the boat started to rock as tiny waves started to
slowly form and lap up against the sides
the boat was doing something it hadn't done a moment ago
and the weater was changing quickly.

the two girls got to the ladder
took off their fins and handed them to meghan.

"hurry," said meghan in a whisper
"hurry"

the two girls reached the platform of the deck and
all three of them stood looking at the cloud
it was unheard of for these parts, but yes it looked
like a twister.

meghan found her voice, "come on, let's get out of here."