There is a god at the bottom of the swimming pool. Whirring, he wakes me from my sleep. He scuttles like a crab across vinyl. Some nights, I stay up to listen to the song he scratches into the tile.

It’s a somber sound, settling unearthily on concrete. It wasn’t meant to be enjoyed, I know. But I do.

I close my eyes and imagine it’s the sound of the earth turning on its axis. I imagine it’s the sound of time moving, year after year. It turns and turns and I follow suit, casting shadows behind me.

I imagine the god is lonely and far away from home. I imagine he is just as lost as we are, piecing together maps from soggy, fallen leaves and clumps of hair from the filter.

He cried himself into his containment. He misstepped once and fell into this hole. I hope he curses himself for being created without wings and arms and hands that could climb out of this.

I hope he catches his reflection in bubbles every now and then, and stops to consider how his face grew so hard.

He cries out and causes waves to rise and fall, splashes around, drags the moon close and pushes it away.

I hope he knows he can do anything, believes he can do anything, except help himself.

Each morning, I clean the pool. I dissect his well-laid plans with a skimmer and make his world clear and beautiful again. All for him, of course.

I imagine he is building character, struggling in a world that was not meant for him to live in, a world meant for someone else to enjoy. We built him in our image, to do the job we don’t want to do.

I hope he wonders at the unprompted responsibility and grows frustrated each time I insist that I would not give him a challenge he couldn’t overcome. I hope he’s beginning to learn.

There is a god at the bottom of the swimming pool, learning how to grow old and tired of swimming.