#203 The Swimmer- John Cheever
Neddy Merril like many in this affluent community was hungover today but happy and lazing about in the sun and wading in the water.
Neddy felt like a suburban explorer and decided to “swim home” making his way
from pool to pool through his neighbors back yards.
One by one he hopped hedges, skirted fences and swam each
pool, coming upon afternoon parties and handed several drinks. He avoided long
conversation and decided to name this string of waterways after his
wife…Lucinda River. When he came across an empty pool, he was baffled.
“This breach in his chain of water disappointed him
absurdly, and he felt like some explorer who seeks a torrential headwater and
finds a dead stream.”
What seems at first like a fools errand, a drunken prank, a
rich man’s folly turns out to be something much sadder. He has deluded himself
into thinking its just another beautiful day in his perfect life, but it is
not, He is not the man he used to be, he is no longer among the wealthy and
envied population he fancies himself to be. He had lost his wealth, his lover,
and some friends.
This swim is proof that he can lo longer be that man, he
cant even climb out of the pool without a ladder. “Believing as he did, that
all human obduracy was susceptible to common sense, was he unable to turn
back?”
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