Between the Covers: "The Swimmers" By Julie Otsuka

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka begins with a group of swimmers who have been using a particular pool, some for as much as twenty-five years. The pool is below ground level, and while others use the facility, these people have a particular time set aside to swim laps. Swimmers have certain lanes which they always use, and a set of rules that everyone abides by. Otsuka identifies the swimmers usually by first names and lane numbers or sometimes just by lane numbers, so we have an understanding of the relationships in this group. One of the people is Alice who is beginning to suffer memory loss which Alice seems to treat as not serious, even funny.

What becomes not funny to any of the swimmers is a faint dark line that appears on the bottom of the pool in one of the lanes. What was first thought to be a string or other foreign object in the water reveals itself to be a crack. It causes such consternation among the swimmers that one swimmer immediately gets out of the water and never returns. Some barely give it a thought. Despite inspections and reassurances from management, others become alarmed. “What if the crack is a symptom of some deep-rooted systemic decay? Or a geological anomaly? Or the manifestation of larger underground fault line that has been growing stealthily beneath us for years.” How could it just mysteriously appear and not be something with serious consequences. These worries begin to insinuate themselves into their lives “aboveground.”