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This story is appropriately titled ‘Deep Water’. It unfolds with the narrator deciding to learn swimming aft the YMCA swimming pool. He admitted that he had an aversion to water. This began when he was three or four years old and his father took him to a California beach. Here he was knocked down and swept away by the waves.
Yet another incident aggravated his phobia of water bodies. He was tossed by a robust bully into the deeper end of the swimming pool. He nearly drowned and was terribly frightened. An ‘icy horror’ took possession of him and his legs became paralysed.
He began to avoid going near water bodies. Finally, he decided that it was time to act tough. He engaged an instructor who systematically trained him in the art of swimming. Thus, the ‘deep’ aversion and terror he had of water was finally removed.