<p>The prompt is prompt number 4, asking you to describe an environment in which you are comfortable. I only discovered CC a short while ago, so I don't have the seniority to be able to PM people I think, so I'll post it here. I wrote it several months ago, and I'm not sure whether after a stretch of time I still like it. Feedback please!</p>
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<p>Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?</p>
<pre><code>I break the water, entering hands first, my body trailing gracefully behind until I am fully submerged. I kick in long, undulating motions, driving myself forward through the stillness of deep water. My eyes are closed. I don't need to see to know where I'm going. I keep kicking, powerfully and fast until my inner peace is broken by the screaming of my lungs. All at once I'm on fire, I can't breathe, I'm going to die; all instincts scream up, up, up and I break the surface with a gasp. My world is clear again. My eyes fly open.
For the instant my head is tilted to breathe I can see the people on the sidelines. My teammates are all on their feet, arms flailing, urging me on. I am reminded that I am swimming just as much for them as myself. The universal roar hits my ears, unbroken by cap or wave. I can feel a palpable shock run through my body; the air, the atmosphere, the crowd channel unrestrained energy directly through my body and when that long breath ends and my head returns to the water, I am changed.
Time, painstakingly slow before, now rushes by. My arms scratch at the water grasping, reaching, stretching for the next foot, the next inch but I am still too slow, I need to move faster, faster, faster, faster. I am a being of a singular principle, to move forwards with greater and greater speed. My flip at the wall hardly registers, the product of years and years of training muscle memory but that doesn't matter now, all that matters are my kicks and the war in my lungs and I break free from the water surface again. I taste the air, savoring this second breath. The race is close, and I sense a greater urgency in the crowd. My competitor in the lane adjacent mine is close, even a little ahead, but I can see within him a deep tiredness that I lie to myself I do not have. My head returns to the water, and I am grateful for the coolness of its touch. The second length, the final stretch, is even more desperate than the first.
My eyes are fastened resolutely to the familiar long black line on the bottom of the pool that I know will bring me home. The last few yards are a spectacle. My arm lunges towards the wall; I throw every fiber of my being behind the final push that connects my hand with the touchpad. In those moments, between the adrenaline of victory and the wave of fatigue that follows, I am perfectly content doing what I love.
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