Books > The Unknown Knowns > Excerpts

The obvious way to describe water is with adjectives. People like to say water is murky or dappled or turbulent or calm. They call it brackish, crystalline, emerald, white. Deep, shallow, filmy, or unfathomable. But all those adjectives don't even come close to describing water like it really is. They just float across the surface, like dead leaves or algae.

You could also try describing water with action verbs. You could say it rushes, or pours, or drips. You could also say it seeps, for instance. Water can boil or it can freeze or it can steam. But it doesn't matter how many verbs you throw at the water; they don't stick either. Trying to describe water by what it does is kind of like telling a story by throwing a book at your wife.

Another way people sometimes describe water is in context. I'll give you an example: a man walks by making water noises. His tube socks are drenched and they're going squish, squish, squish. With every step he takes: squish, squish. But when you ask the guy if he wants a dry pair -- you have the socks right there in your hand; you even offer them to him -- he shakes his head no. And that's when you hear it: you hear the fluid slosh inside his skull like milk in a coconut.

Here's another example of describing water in context. A little kid is pulled out of a swimming pool. His skin is red and raw. He's crying without making a sound. Something bad has been done to the water.

Or here's an even better example of water in context: two women go over a waterfall in a big bucket. The water is so crazy all around them that no one can hear them screaming, not even the women themselves. An ambulance backs up to the edge of the water. The lights are insistent, swirling. They paint the mountain red, and to look at them makes you feel like you don't have enough pockets to put your hands in. There are probably other examples that I'm sure you could come up with. But here's the one I keep coming back to, the one that's relevant to my present circumstance. A guy jumps into a swimming pool, pointing his toes to mitigate the splash. Water knifes up inside his swim trunks, it pinches his nipples. He blows bubbles through his nose to prevent the water from entering his skull. The water floods his thinning hair and his body hangs limp in the pool light. The body hangs limp while the guy thinks about water.

That guy is me. I am the guy in the water thinking about water.