Waving Not Drowning

Craig is a happy guy. A good guy, a kind guy. An everybody-likes-him guy. Kind and caring, listens when you talk. A give you the shirt off his back guy. Which evidently he has done because Craig is now wandering around the grocery store shirtless, in brand new lime green sneakers, complaining to anyone within earshot that today is the day. No more Mister Nice Guy. He's brandishing a japanese eggplant, which in itself is weird seeing as Craig's not a nightshade guy, per se. In the crook of his other elbow is his basket, overflowing with paper towel paper and bananas, a jar of olives, two limes and a kiwi, a rotisserie chicken, side of potato salad, purple Gatorade, and 2 packages of mini Mars bars. It's day 187 of lockdown and evidently Craig's had enough. His job disappeared day one so the first 4 and a half months were spent volunteering, distributing PPE to frontline workers. Then onto baking Bavarian soft pretzels and curating five types of spicy mustard dips....

It was an irrational fear, he knew that. Intellectually Craig understood that he wasn't going to drown or be eaten alive by sharks or electrocuted by eels but ever since he was a child, lakes have paralyzed him with fear. He was 8 years old when his new neighbours Dana and Eric convinced him to tread hip deep into White Creek lake to pick up the abalone shells, telling him they were magical and possessed special powers. Craig was desperate to impress. He didn't make friends easily. Too heady, too quiet, "socially awkward" was what the teachers wrote. Gifted was how his mom translated it. Craig didn't notice the leeches at first. It was only when Dana and Eric couldn't stifle their laughter any longer that he saw them covering his ankles and inchworming up his calf. Stuttering and wailing in terror Craig begged the brothers to get them off. Eric finally pulled out a matchbook and started burning them off, one by one, putting a flaming match to each leech. They...