Chapter Text
Life is an ocean,
And Wally’s drowning in it.
Wally didn’t know how to swim, let alone ‘doggy paddle’. He was stuck in this constant loop of self hatred and self loathing that he was too busy focusing on swimming to the shore, to swim to safety. He could try, and try, and try, but without help, he just sank deeper to the bottom of the spiraling pit that was his life.
Once everything seemed to climax and hit its tipping point for Wally, it seemed to fall down. Faster than that very own sea had dragged him under the rippling surface. At first he was peacefully floating on a raft above the water. When the sea was calm, when he was younger and had no worries. Then the storm came and knocked him overboard, sending him flying with nobody in his sight to swim to for help. He had flailed his arms and kicked at the water to try and stay above to stay alive.
Then it got worse. So much worse.
It seemed like everything about the ocean was against him, telling him to let go and drown in the salty liquid. To stop trying, and give up. He promised he would never give up, he promised he wouldn’t stop trying. He always thought people who stopped trying to swim were silly and had no reason to, that it was absolutely crazy for somebody who wanted to stop themselves from trying to swim in that ocean. Whenever Wally heard of people who gave up on swimming he always thought ‘That’s awful, why would somebody do that? I would never do that.”
But now Wally gets it. He gets why, he sees why.
In this ocean we call life, we can't control anything. We can’t always swim the fastest, we can't always get to shore the safest. For Wally, the only way to control what he thought was the only option was to make him not swim. To control his own drowning.
But in the end, there's always a swimmer who cares. There’s always a survivor who will care and want to help those who are drowning. No matter how much Wally felt like he didn’t deserve to be able to swim in this ocean, he was cared for. He was saved by a swimmer, a swimmer named Howdy. Howdy was the one who thrived, but not only Howdy, but also Wally.
Even though Wally hadn’t survived on his own and needed help swimming, he still was important. It was okay to ask for swimming lessons, it was okay to get help.
The only way to swim, is to try.
So, that’s what Wally did. Instead of pushing him more and more under the current, he let himself be carried to shore. He had stopped trying to be drowned under the constant pressure of the ocean of despair, instead letting it carry him.
There sat Howdy and Wally, outside Howdy’s shop looking up at the sky. It was dark out now, and the sun had set. Howdy pointed out certain constellations to Wally that he thought Wally might find interesting, Howdy’s favorite one being a constellation called ‘Orion's belt’, which looks similar to a worm for Howdy. Wally thought it was more similar to a ‘w’, but he wouldn’t mention that.
There was something different about the two being safe on this 'raft'.
Wally wasn’t coughing up water from almost recently drowning, or any injuries from his attempts to injure himself enough to drown. He was healing now. Or in more present terms, there were no more cuts. The burns and cuts he had made had faded into scars now, just like an injury would. Sure it was a reminder everyday he showered, changed, or even just saw them. But Wally didn’t see it as a reason to spiral. He saw it as a reason to remember. Those scars told him that it would eventually get easier to swim, and that he learned how to swim once. Nobody could take that away from him, not even himself.
That’s why, even when the current tries to pull you under, You swim.