Volker Frost couldn’t breathe.

Water filled his lungs and drowned out all other noise. He fought the current with flailing limbs and gasping breaths. Volker couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. His heavy limbs pushed through the dark and his chest tightened.

Volker had been pushed.

Not ten minutes earlier, Volker had skipped along the riverside without a care, carrying a hefty bundle of sticks for his grandmother’s fire. She refused to use gas, and logs just didn’t do it for kindling. He knew he had been walking too close to the water, but it had been so pretty he couldn’t help it!

Crystal clear and cool, the water was too lovely not to see up close.

“The water is deeper than it looks, don’t forget that,” his mother would say, scraping the grease out of a fry pan in grandma’s kitchen. “It’ll trick you if you let it.”

Volker ignored her warnings, because just as any other eight year old, he knew better than his mother any day.  Volker loved the breeze that came off the surface and how it ruffled through his hair. How deep could it possibly be when you could see each individual stone and pebble at the river’s bottom?

A colorful fish swimming just above the dappled pebbles had drawn Volker’s attention when he felt the pressure on his back—a harsh shove square between his shoulder blades that knocked him off his feet. 

The sticks he carried clattered on the rocks and splashed alongside him as they tumbled into the water. It wasn’t until he had disappeared completely below the river’s surface, rather than land knee-deep with a chuckle, did the panic set in.

Volker couldn’t breathe.

Desperate to break free from the icy hold of the thick water and reach air he kicked and moved his arms toward the surface. Volker’s feet felt nothing under him. There was no ground, no holds. Only compressing water suffocating Volker as swam to the surface to escape its frigid grip. But the rushing cold filled his lungs and dragged him down.

The river had a current and Volker had never known such fear before.

By the mercy of God alone, as his mother would say later, Volker latched onto a low hanging branch that dipped under the water. He pulled along the branch until he broke the surface of the water. As he clung to the tree limb, Volker gulped for air, hyperventilating in his panic to the point that his lungs thud against his chest louder than his heartbeat. Volker would never take breathing for granted again, and at eight, he barely even knew what that sentiment meant. 

Volker dragged himself to the steep riverbank, an inch at a time making his way down the branch, thankful the river was not nearly as wide as it was deep. While he crawled up the thick mud and dirt of the river side, Volker thanked someone he didn’t know yet for the save.

Trembling, Volker walked home. Each step created a new form of misery with the squelch of excess liquid in his tennis shoes chilling his toes, and the drips of cold water clinging to his shirt.

His mother had scolded him with tears and her eyes and ferocious hugs when he stumbled into the cabin, soaking wet from river water and tears. He’d been hugged so hard that he almost felt like he was drowning again as she squeezed. Volker cried harder and shoved at his mother to let go, fearful of it happening all over again.

That was the last time Volker had gone near the river, or any other large body of water. He vowed to stay away from it. Volker kept his distance and didn’t even so much as visit the local pools, or sit in a bathtub. He refused to put himself in that situation again.

Or at least, he tried to stay away.

Some things were just out of his control.