Water gives life. It also takes it away.
Write a short piece - fiction or non-fiction - inspired by one or both of these statements.
Word maximum is 600.
Result:
This was all that damn Jessie Spano's fault. Maggie had been minding her own business flipping through the channels when she came across Showgirls on HBO. Like any red-blooded American who grew up in the 80s and 90s she had to stop and watch the fallen Saved By The Bell alumna get her groove on. And by groove of course she meant completely unsexy, totally rhythm-less, pole swinging.
She had only intended to watch for a second, but of course, 30 minutes later she had yet to change the channel. Ben must have heard her laughing and wandered in from his office to see what was up. It was the pool scene. He immediately joined her and they sat watching what had to be the single worst sex scene ever put on film. As the movie continued Ben got a look on his face. A look Maggie knew all too well.
"You know," he said, "we have a pool. We could recreate that scene. Wink wink. But totally as a goof. How funny would that be?!"
And so they had. Hair flinging, head banging, water flying and all. Maggie was positive they had never laughed so hard. But she wasn't laughing now. Just over 38 weeks later and she was covered in an entirely different kind of water. The kind that breaks. And she was not having nearly as much fun.
Ben had been certain that you couldn't get pregnant in a pool. Something he had heard a million years ago in health class about the sperm not being able to survive in the chlorine. Clearly that was not true. She would kill him once this was over. The fact that she had chosen to believe him and had done her level best to reenact the pool scene perfectly had nothing to do with this current predicament. It had clearly been his fault.
The nurse came in to check her again and made the dreaded announcement. It was time to push. The room got ready and Maggie started pushing. She may or may not have yelled out, "Damn you Jessie!" at one point. The nurses looked to Ben and told him not to worry, women in labor often yelled out things to their partners they didn't mean. Much to their confusion, and his delight, he informed them that his name was Ben and not, in fact, Jessie. They stopped talking to him after that.
What felt like an eternity of pushing later, the room went completely silent and then there was a wail to rival Mariah Carey. Their little girl was finally here. The doctor cleaned her up a bit and placed her on Maggie's chest. She was the most beautiful thing Maggie had ever seen. Ben leaned over his girls and had never felt such love and joy. He whispered in Maggie's ear, "You were amazing. I love you."
"I love you too," Maggie said, dreamily looking back to her sweet girl, "So what are we going to name her?"
"Jessie?"
