“You know, it takes a certain amount of energy to heat a certain area of water. 1 kilo Cal to raise 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius, in fact.”

“Huh… I can almost hear the capital C in your Celsius.”

A man and woman stood side by side staring into a swimming pool. There was no one else around save them and the crickets chirping.

“What is the temperature of the water?” The woman asked.

“How would I know?” the man shrugged. “Cold I guess? Or hot maybe? It’s not now though, so probably hot.”

“Measure it you twat, what else did I bring you here for?” She scowled at him and prodded him until he began to move. He shrugged his shoulders as he walked towards where they left their luggage and took out a thermometer in a black case out of his backpack. He walked back to the pool and gently extracted the thermometer and squatted down to measure the waters temperature.

“You know, sometimes I think it would be nice if the world revolved around me,” The woman said, as the red line on the thermometer began to rise up.

“What does it matter?” the man replied. “Your world revolves around you.”

“It’s not the same,” she said frowning slightly.

“Well, it might as well be… 25OC… ish…” the man said, and took the thermometer out and shook it dry.

“Stop hurting my instruments!” the lady scowled and kicked the man. He sighed and placed it back gently into the case. She wrote down the number onto a sheet of paper on her clipboard and continued staring into the water. “Well, it is a warm day I suppose,” she said and then threw her clipboard towards the general direction of their bags. The man grunted.

“My grandfather once told me to always beware of shallow water.”

“Oh yeah?” he looked up at her. “Why’s that then?”

“Because you never really know,” she said. “Water is deceiving. And nothing in the ocean is concrete.”

“Huh,” the man said thinking about it. “I guess so, but we are at the public pool,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I know, but you know, those who swim drown, or some other Chinese proverb like that.”

“Did you get that from some TV thing? What does that even mean?” the man asked.

“It means that those who are most arrogant of their talents are not cautious of their surroundings… Or maybe I’m just making things up. Who are you to second guess me?”

“I’m sorry princess,” he smirked. “A common nobody. I beg pardon of your goodself.”

“Whatever, go put that back in the bag and get me the screw top containers with the blue tops,” she pointed towards the luggage that they left on one of the pool lounge chairs. The man stood up and pulled his lab coat closer towards him, mostly out of habit than anything else, and followed her orders. He looked back at her once as he walked, her straight black hair tied up in a bun and her glasses always reminded him of a school headmistress.

“There was once a girl, who saw an ant drowning… or was it swimming? She pitied it and tried pushing it out of the water. Slowly pushing the water around it, manoeuvring it to safety. But she didn’t realise that she was pushing it towards a drain… then in it went.” The man turned around again from his adventures rummaging through the backpacks. “That girl you?” She grunted in response. “I wonder how many memories this pool has. How many people learnt to swim here? How many kids were bullied by their siblings? How many people contemplated their lives and loves? And how many people have died because of its waters.”

“What?” The man was shocked by the last remark. He nearly dropped the containers he was holding. Nearly. She would have killed him if he did though, so his hands thought the better of it.

“There’s a silent killers in these waters.”

“Like a ghost?” he walked back towards her and handed her the containers. He was sweating slightly, maybe because of the heat.

“No you twat,” she said. “Another kind of monster, invisible to us. That’s why we are here after all; to make sure the pool is safe now.” “It really should be though, but a job is a job I suppose.”

“And how you gonna do that?” The man scratched his messy brown hair. The lady eyed her companion.

“We,” she said, “are going to take a water sample.” She dipped a container into the water and screwed it tight and handed it to the man. “Put this somewhere safe.”

As the man turned to walk away, she smiled at him and said, “You know… I can’t swim.”

Then she jumped into the water.

The man screamed her name as he saw her go in while sunlight streamed through the drops of displaced water, flickering onto his face. The crickets chirped on as the water calmed down and suddenly she was there, the sun illuminating her grin. “What?” she splashed some more water at the man. “It’s only shallow water.” The man laughed at his companion. He put down the container on the floor. Then sighing, jumped in after her.