Payton J Vaughn
The Abyss
Someone with way too much anxiety about to enter an abyss in the ocean
Sharks, signaled my brother, as I looked into the darkening abyss, scared of what's yet to come.
Six months earlier, I'm sitting in my room playing video games and doing teenager stuff, and I see my father's head poke in the room, and he nonchalantly asks me "What do you want to do this summer?" I thought about the Bahamas, because I had been newly certified as a diver, and a lot of people that I know who dive told me the Bahamas is a great place to dive and experience. So I told my father exactly that.
Now fast forward about six months to the actual event. I'm in my hotel room, and I wake up and I notice I have this lump in my throat, and I'm really nervous and scared because I've been told, "There are going to be a lot of sharks in this place we're going to." Now, I'm thinking these what-ifs, “What if I get attacked? What if my regulator-- my breathing tube-- stops working? What if my B.C.D stopped working and I went plummeting to the bottom of this two-hundred foot hole?” I'm thinking these thoughts throughout my entire trip to the boat.
When I'm getting in the boat and loading up all my gear to get ready for the dive, I smell the ocean, the fish, the rust from the boat and I hear seagulls in the background, probably fighting over a dead fish.
Fast forward again, about thirty minutes when we get to the hole. The hole is about seventy-five to eighty feet wide, and two-hundred feet deep. It's called the blue hole. I didn't realize how massive it actually was, and from the surface I couldn't really see much. Like, I realized it was going to be massive, but not that massive.
I got down to the edge of the hole to look over, and I only see two sharks, two sharp-nosed sharks. I look over to my Diving Instructor Roger, my brother Jackson, and my Diving Instructor’s girlfriend MJ, and I signal to them, where the other sharks? My dive instructor signaled back that they’re beneath us, out of our vision. Just then, my mind snaps. These what if questions that disappeared in my mind, are back. I was thinking that sharks would out of the depth and attack me and murder me and my friends in cold blood. I think, "I've been trained for things like this, and I've been in an aquarium with other sharks and nothing happened."
I'm so scared; my blood's cold and my heart's pounding out of my chest. I just don't want to go in the hole, I just wanted to back up and go to the surface, relax, and not have to deal with this. But in the back of my head, my other voice tells me "Just do it, it's going to be fun, you got this." And so I listen to him, and I go down. and it's beautiful, just the muddy colors and the greens and yellows and the browns and the blacks of this hole, it's just amazing.
As I'm swimming, I come to this little alcove that somewhat reminds me of how small I am, if the hole didn't remind me of that already. I see a lot of lobsters and small fish and their vibrant colors. It's just really peaceful, and I look over to the two sharks and they're either keeping their distance or small, either works for me.
I'm just really happy and enjoying this moment. I look to my friends and family, and everything is just peaceful. There's nothing wrong, and if something does go wrong I'll deal with it in the moment. I just need to be ready If that moment comes.
Now, I'm swimming around and just enjoying myself, I'm seeing turtles and fish and the plants on the side of the wall, and other people coming up out of the depth completely unharmed, as we start finishing the dive I realize nothing happened and I wasn't feeling scared or anything when I was actually down there. In the hole, it was just peaceful. It was blissful. everything was calm and quiet.
Six months earlier, I'm sitting in my room playing video games and doing teenager stuff, and I see my father's head poke in the room, and he nonchalantly asks me "What do you want to do this summer?" I thought about the Bahamas, because I had been newly certified as a diver, and a lot of people that I know who dive told me the Bahamas is a great place to dive and experience. So I told my father exactly that.
Now fast forward about six months to the actual event. I'm in my hotel room, and I wake up and I notice I have this lump in my throat, and I'm really nervous and scared because I've been told, "There are going to be a lot of sharks in this place we're going to." Now, I'm thinking these what-ifs, “What if I get attacked? What if my regulator-- my breathing tube-- stops working? What if my B.C.D stopped working and I went plummeting to the bottom of this two-hundred foot hole?” I'm thinking these thoughts throughout my entire trip to the boat.
When I'm getting in the boat and loading up all my gear to get ready for the dive, I smell the ocean, the fish, the rust from the boat and I hear seagulls in the background, probably fighting over a dead fish.
Fast forward again, about thirty minutes when we get to the hole. The hole is about seventy-five to eighty feet wide, and two-hundred feet deep. It's called the blue hole. I didn't realize how massive it actually was, and from the surface I couldn't really see much. Like, I realized it was going to be massive, but not that massive.
I got down to the edge of the hole to look over, and I only see two sharks, two sharp-nosed sharks. I look over to my Diving Instructor Roger, my brother Jackson, and my Diving Instructor’s girlfriend MJ, and I signal to them, where the other sharks? My dive instructor signaled back that they’re beneath us, out of our vision. Just then, my mind snaps. These what if questions that disappeared in my mind, are back. I was thinking that sharks would out of the depth and attack me and murder me and my friends in cold blood. I think, "I've been trained for things like this, and I've been in an aquarium with other sharks and nothing happened."
I'm so scared; my blood's cold and my heart's pounding out of my chest. I just don't want to go in the hole, I just wanted to back up and go to the surface, relax, and not have to deal with this. But in the back of my head, my other voice tells me "Just do it, it's going to be fun, you got this." And so I listen to him, and I go down. and it's beautiful, just the muddy colors and the greens and yellows and the browns and the blacks of this hole, it's just amazing.
As I'm swimming, I come to this little alcove that somewhat reminds me of how small I am, if the hole didn't remind me of that already. I see a lot of lobsters and small fish and their vibrant colors. It's just really peaceful, and I look over to the two sharks and they're either keeping their distance or small, either works for me.
I'm just really happy and enjoying this moment. I look to my friends and family, and everything is just peaceful. There's nothing wrong, and if something does go wrong I'll deal with it in the moment. I just need to be ready If that moment comes.
Now, I'm swimming around and just enjoying myself, I'm seeing turtles and fish and the plants on the side of the wall, and other people coming up out of the depth completely unharmed, as we start finishing the dive I realize nothing happened and I wasn't feeling scared or anything when I was actually down there. In the hole, it was just peaceful. It was blissful. everything was calm and quiet.