Flashes of Panic

The first length after a rest is just as smooth as the Olympians make it look. You haul in the black line like a big rope and fake it into coils behind you, and sip air from the little space behind your own bow wave. The lane lines skip by like guardrail pylons on the freeway. Your arms are pistons. Your hands are two-cup scoops,
oars,
coal shovels.