A kind of stroke you never have to learn, not like the back stroke or the butterfly, it comes installed already like the long lazy crawl you practiced in the womb before you could even breathe. Your feet go down, your head goes up, like someone standing up in water, or trying to, like someone who's forgotten everything they've ever known about how to float, how to keep on living in this world. You stick your arms up, waving about for help while your legs keep kicking themselves straight down. Your head comes up again, once or twice, for a final breath. You turn streamlined as a fish, a stone, as something grabs you from below and, like a midwife, tugs you, gasping, backwards out of life.