“Water? What do I think about water? I’ll tell you what I think about water.” Lyman was angry. The silence went on. “Well?” Alford prompted. “What do you think about water?” He tried to keep his question flat, so as not to acknowledge Lyman’s fit of pique. “I try not to,” Lyman said, at last, deflated. He put his head back and closed his eyes. Alford did not see how this was possible. Lyman sat in it. Or rather, he lay in it. Was lying. He was lying too. Alford knew that as well. Lyman did not try not to think about water. To try to not think about water would have meant humming meaningless jingles or reciting nursery rhymes or doing advanced algebra in his head or most likely doing nothing but think about not thinking about water, which Lyman, for one, was unprepared…
“Water,” A Fiction by Rob Swigart
