Milly stands beside the pool, arms crossed, and falls backwards into the cool, clean water. Body sinking towards the bottom, she wonders when she’ll run out of air. Eyes opened, the chlorine stinging them as she watches her stethoscope fall, wet blood stained muted green scrubs clinging to her.

Small bubbles of air escape her nose, floating upwards like clouds. She sits on the bottom of the pool, and grief glues her there until her lungs burn for air. Someone yanks her to the surface and drags her out. Milly coughs, spewing water.

“You couldn’t have saved her.”

“She didn’t deserve to die.”

“Neither do you.

This is one of those micro stories that came together fairly quickly, and only required minimal editing to the opening line. Although, the minute you delete words in such a small piece, you never know what will happen. For this piece, I started with an opening line that didn’t fit the final story, and I needed to make room for explaining what profession Milly had. Thankfully, the words rearranged with little argument.