if too much time is spent up above we become uncharacteristically curt with our colleagues, we slip up on our programs, we are rude to waiters even though one of us—lane seven, little black Speedo, enormous, flipper-like feet—is a waiter himself, we cease to delight our mates. Not now. And even though we do our best to resist the urge to descend—It’ll pass, we tell ourselves—we can feel our panic beginning to rise, as though we were somehow missing out on our own lives. Just a quick dip and everything will be all right. And when we can stand it no longer we politely excuse ourselves from
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