The Swimmers

by Julie Otsuka

mesomorphs

(Mallomars?

Professor Weng Wei Li, author of The Solace of Primes) prefers to swim exactly eighty-nine.

89 laps

we also have no riptides, no jellyfish, no sunburns, no lightning, no internet, no nonsense, no riffraff and, best of all, no shoes.

What the pool lacks

after new year’s and other major holidays during which alarming quantities of food have been steadily ingested, you may notice a sudden influx of newcomers frantic to swim off the pounds. Binge swimmers, we call them.

Binge swimmers

First one in!

postprandial

folie à deux

“I came, I saw, I conquered.” Veni, vidi, vici. She remembers how to say “I have lost the day.” Diem perdidi.

Latin

There are eighty-seven other people at Belavista and more than fifty million worldwide who are similarly afflicted.

Dementia

at unexpected moments the fear may suddenly hit you.

The fear

You may worry that you are in the wrong room. The wrong bed. The wrong life. That life outside is rolling right along without you (it is). That you are not wanted (you are wanted). That you are not well (you are not well). That you are not missed (but you are, more than you will ever know).

Worries

frontotemporal dementia. FTD. Some of the symptoms: gradual changes in personality, inappropriate behavior in public, apathy, weight gain, loss of inhibition, the desire to hoard.

FTD

about men in general: “You must pretend to take them seriously” and “It’s not always about you!”

About men

(You can’t stay in your room forever! your mother used to say to you, even though, with the exception of your brief foray into married life, you basically have—you are, after all, a writer).

Staying in your room

the last complete sentence she ever utters is “It’s a good thing there’s birds.”

The last sentence