Breathless Beneath Blue Silence

There, if your spacesuit tears, death awaits. “Armstrong, when he arrived on the moon, must have felt the same, though this is only a hundred meters. Still, I felt a kind of nirvana,” said Jacques Mayol. There, if your breath falters, death awaits. Though he returned from the deep many times, in the end, he chose his final dive. He chose a place from which there is no return. Nirvana— a state of release from suffering. They say a restless mind disrupts the breath. Even in the depths, he kept his mind still. But in truth, deep within, there were waves rippling all along. When you dive deep, not a single bubble, not a single ripple can rise. Whether the world a hundred meters down is suffering or peace— I wouldn’t know. Nor can I say whether the world of death is suffering, or peace.