My Imaginary Shark

All kids deserve to have a carefree childhood. But unfortunately, mine was spoiled by the gloom possibility of my hometown being swallowed by the rising sea level.

You see, we have all heard about global warming - how the green house effect would one day force humans to burrow underground; how the melting polar ice caps would eventually flood all land lower than the Alps.

I grew up on a small island whose highest elevation is a 735 meter. That being said, it is more than likely that my hometown will one day share the same fate as Alexandria. Now, that was a good motivation for me to take swimming lessons. Should the great flood happen, I would take the north-western course and swim towards the Alps.

Unfortunately, I never trained well enough to join the trans-Atlantic swimming marathon. Believe it or not, until now, my freestyle is still worse than my breast stroke. When I timed myself at the pool this afternoon, I took half a minute to finish the 25m course with freestyle. Hell, that was as slow as breast stroke.

I told myself I needed more practice. Being in Japan doesn't offer me much solace. Even Mt Fuji, the highest elevation in Japan is merely 3776 meter high.

Okay, for the sake of argument, let's presume the prophesied great flood would never happen. But even so, being able to swim well could be life-saving. Haven't you heard of the killer sharks in Australia? I'd like to visit the Great Barrier Reef one day, provided that I could make sure that I wouldn't end up in a hungry shark's tummy.

I tried image training, just like the Olympic athletes do. I imagined being chased by a man-eating shark. But unfortunately, that didn't work well. I still swam like an amoeba. Soon, my imaginary shark caught up with me and chomped off my right leg. Believe me, it's never easy to swim with only one leg. I had to call off the summoned shark to spare myself from my gory fate.

Hmm, I guess I have to come up with something scarier. The Loch Ness monster, perhaps?

Oh, I know! I ought to build an ark instead...