Without the water

An original imagined literary non-fiction-style account of viewing a drained swimming pool.

From the reception window, I could see the pool without its water. It looked like a bowl with its voice removed. The blue floor lay exposed beneath the skylights, and the black lane lines travelled towards a wall which suddenly seemed much farther away.

I had swum here for years without properly seeing that floor. It arrived beneath me in broken pieces, wavering and bright. Now every tile insisted on its own small square. The place I knew through movement had become a still and rather severe drawing.

The lane ropes were stacked beside the wall. Their coloured floats, once the firm borders of my weekly exercise, had become a heap of enormous beads. I had always borrowed a straight line from them; now they could not keep one for themselves.

A member of staff crossed the far side carrying a folded cloth. Her ordinary steps seemed absurdly clear. Usually the room swallowed small sounds into splashing and voices; now one dropped key would have had the whole building to itself.

I was glad the pool would fill again. I wanted the broken light, the blurred tiles and the familiar noise. But I stayed at the window a moment longer, looking at the shape which had quietly held all that movement.

Examine the methods the writer uses to make a familiar swimming pool seem unfamiliar when empty.