Underwater

| Archana Nair | October 2025 | Short Story |

Of the fourteen therapists I have consulted in my life, Mrs Verma tops the list. Every time a session comes up, I feel an excitement rise in my tummy that settles down near my heart when the hour is up. As I make my way to her drawing room, I pause my favourite song that’s blasting in my ear and remove the AirPods. 

“Hi Sameera, how are you today?” She asks.

I have been seeing her for four years now. We moved to online sessions during COVID, but I am happy that I get to meet her in person now. She has changed the paintings, rearranged her furniture, and cleared the cluttered bookshelf that I always avoided looking at. 

“It’s been a tough week,” I reply. 

“Tell me, what happened?”

My eyes wander to the verandah that opens to the busy streets of Indiranagar. Mrs Verma is wearing a yellow kurta and silver jhumkas. Her greying hair is in a bun, and her wrinkled eyes gaze into mine with a concern that always makes me emotional. She looks at my SpongeBob t-shirt, wide-legged jeans and unkempt hair, then looks into my eyes again for answers. 

“I am unable to sleep at night,” I tell her. 

“You look it, Sammy. Walk me through your day.”

I love it when she calls me that. 

“Well.. work’s shit, and I can’t focus. My performance review came in two weeks ago as below-expectation, and since then, I have been restless. I am sure they are going to fire me anytime now.”

“You are overthinking it. These are your thoughts at night?”

“Yes, and the war and the poor children dying.”

“Hmm..” Mrs Verma takes notes in her brown leather notebook. I think I have filled a good amount of this book.

“Have you heard the news? How horrendous is everything? Everybody in my circle is posting these petitions. I reposted a few, but deleted later, because what’s the point, you know. But at the office, this Priya coaxed me into posting again.”

“We discussed this, you promised to stay away from social media for some time, what’s your screen time now?”

“Like 12 hours?” 

I avoid her eyes as she had asked me to bring this down to five. 

“Our next session was in two weeks, Sammy. Why did you call for this one urgently?”

“I am really trying to stay away from social media. I uninstalled Instagram last night, and then this news came out about Mary and the Lambs?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s my favourite band. I have tickets to watch them live next year in California. Simon is…  Simon Parker is my all time… favourite singer.”

“This is about your US trip next year?” 

“There has been a case filed against him for sexual assault.”

“I can see how this affects you, but you need some mental boundaries. A good sleep cycle should be your priority, not the war, or Simon.” 

“I am trying.”

“I know, could you tell me what you did this whole week?”

“I have been working from home, so I didn’t step out.”

“Did you meet any of your friends?”

“I spoke to my sister about the trip. We were looking at hotels to stay in.”

“Did you take any nature walks?”

“No.”

“You will have to find time for the things to destress and calm your mind; there is no other way, Sameera.”

She goes a little off topic about recent events in Cubbon Park and the oxygen levels there. I listen and nod. She tells me how she is planning to go there with her friends this Sunday. I want to go with her, but I am too shy to ask. 

The session ends with four writing exercises and two meditation routines to help with sleep. 

At night, I uninstall Instagram and turn my phone to quiet mode. I clear my head of Simon. I don’t play any songs, instead, I switch to Mrs Verma’s meditation audios. 

***

The next day, I wake up to the internet cancelling Simon Parker. Multiple people have forwarded me videos of him being arrested, and I spend a few hours scrolling through everything I can get my eyes on. I am late for the office, so I skip the shower, dunk myself in perfume and make my way to the office in a zombie state. We have a client meeting today. I think of the design deck that I clumsily submitted yesterday. 

“I expected better from you,” my manager, Alex, says quietly when we walk into the meeting room. Alex is tall, 6’3” or so, and is the loudest in every room. Even when he whispers, everybody can hear him. My team looks like cattle, walking in his shadow to the meeting room. 

“I have been feeling really stressed these days, I am sorry,” I tell him. 

“Nonsense, everybody has stress.”

I try not to be hurt by that. In the meeting, I notice that all the slides have been changed. Alex has taken none of my inputs, he has reworked everything. The client is happy and asks the usual questions about price. Alex handles everything smoothly as I bite my nails in the corner. 

I send a text to Mrs Verma after the meeting. 

“Hi, can we talk in the evening? I think I am getting fired.”

I tap my phone for some time to see if she writes back. She always texts back instantly, but not today. I call her up, and she doesn’t pick up. I debate whether I should offer her more money, but she has refused that in the past. 

Restless, I install Instagram back and scroll through more of Simon’s videos. One college friend has texted me – ‘Isn’t this guy your idol? What an asshole!’

I have been quite loud on social media with my love for Simon’s songs. I close the app and text my sister. 

“I might be getting fired.” 

“You have said this so many times before,” she replies. 

“Should I quit myself?”

“Try to stick to this one.”

Sahana got married and moved to the US a few years ago. She has a brand new kid and no time to call or check up on me. Lately, she has been dismissing all my problems as immature. 

“Ask me what real problems are,” she said once, but I didn’t know what to ask, so I apologised and cut the call. We are visiting her in California early next year. I am to stay with her, and thankfully, she has put up Mom and Dad in a hotel. 

“Btw, did you hear about Simon?’ she asks. 

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s real?” 

“I don’t know.” 

I type a big message about how it can’t be true, but then delete each word. I still haven’t processed the news. 

“Sameera?” It’s Alex. He has come to my desk. I put my phone aside and take a deep breath. 

“The deck you made was pathetic. What’s gotten into you? You had plenty of time to get it right. Shall I remove you from important projects? Check my email, I need them by the end of the week.” As he speaks each word, I try to hold back my tears. A couple of my colleagues have turned around and are looking at me. I lower my head and look at my feet. 

“Okay.”

“And Sameera?”

“Yes?”

“Take off that damn poster.”

I nod and unpin the Simon Parker poster I had on my desk. Simon is looking at me and saying, Nothing matters anyway. 

I go to the bathroom and pull out the phone to check the latest news. Two more women have come out as victims. He gave them acting roles in his videos in exchange for keeping their mouths shut. 

I cry in the bathroom stall, dialling Mrs Verma with every breath.

***

“We heard Alex,” Pooja, Vivek and Shyam corner me after lunch. 

“He is like that with everyone, don’t worry,” Vivek says.

“You don’t look okay,” Shyam says and hands over a cup of coffee. 

“Thanks.”

The coffee is black, with just the right amount of sugar. Shyam has asked me out several times, but I am scared of dating someone in the office. 

Alex reminds me of my father, who shouts at me every time I tell him I am scared or nervous. 

“So crazy news about Simon, huh?” Priya says. 

I don’t want to reply. The last time we debated about the war is still fresh in my memory. Priya ended up pushing me to post videos of war-ridden children on Instagram, if I cared about humanity.  

“I thought this MeToo movement was over. How many more poor men will it take down?” Vivek says to Shyam, who doesn’t meet his eye. 

“Excuse me? Poor men? This asshole raped three women, if you have not seen the news,” Priya says.

“It’s not proven yet, is it?” I say, not able to keep quiet. 

Priya is shocked that I am not supporting her despite being a woman. 

“But meanwhile, every record label has already dropped him, and his career is poof!” Vivek says. 

“You are all sick, I can’t believe you are thinking of things like career when women have been assaulted and traumatised. Do you know how it feels to be violated?” she shouts at Vivek and Shyam. Then she turns to me. 

“And Sameera, are you still listening to his songs? Please say no.”

I saw in the morning that Priya had put up a whole post on Instagram about boycotting rapists. 

“His following is also reduced to one-third. Can you believe that?” Vivek says,  checking his phone. 

Priya looks at me for an answer. 

“I am glad that you took down the poster,” she says.

She doesn’t know that my house has many more. How do I cleanse myself of him?

“Leave her alone, she is working on a deadline,” Shyam says and leaves my desk to give me some space. I get back to my project. I end up having four more coffees, remembering quite well the warning Mrs Verma had given me last time about having coffee in the evening. But sleep would escape me anyway tonight. 

***

I listen to random songs in my car, anything but his. It feels good to have finished the project, but it’s 3 am and I am wide awake. I drive to Mrs Verma’s house and park outside, making out the faint light of her drawing room from the open window. She must be asleep alone in her master bedroom. Her husband works in Mumbai and only comes home during weekends. Both her sons are settled in the US. I wish she could come with me to the US, so she could meet them, while I have my family time. I could sleep peacefully on her shoulder during the long flight. I watch the familiar room for some more time before heading home along the Domlur flyover. 

I was mindful of having a small apartment, because it’s easier to clean. I don’t have a househelp because I don’t trust their hygiene, but I have a cook-didi who comes thrice a week, cooks curries and rice, and keeps it in the fridge. 

“You are a clean kid. This other home I cook at, three girls living in one house. Kitchen so dirty. I take 30 mins to clean it before I cook anything.”

She is comforting to talk to. We sometimes end up having tea and biscuits. 

Today I walk to the kitchen and reheat the chicken curry in a small bowl, and toast two pieces of bread to go with it. I switch on YouTube on my TV and listen to news channels speaking about evidence and the court proceedings. I find some comfort in a few channels calling this ordeal a hoax — they have their own set of evidence because of the kind of empowering music he makes. 

It takes me back to when I was twelve, the first time I heard him. It was a few days after the incident with my Uncle in the swimming pool in Dubai. He had playfully touched me first and then dunked my head under to see a funny thing. He made me put it in my mouth, but I pushed him away to come up for air. After ten seconds, he pushed me inside the water again. He called it a game till there was saliva, mucous, tears and something sticky all over my face. 

I found Mom and told her. She hushed me when I cried. My Uncle was my father’s business partner in Dubai. She ensured that this would never happen again and then sent me to a boarding school in Bangalore the next week. Sahana was doing her masters in Bangalore then, but by the time I finished school and college, she had quit work and moved countries. I always fell short trying to catch up with her. Did she know? I don’t know, I never found the right time to tell her.

I remember the first night in the hostel dorm, lying in a strange bed in a cold city, wrapped up in an expensive comforter my mother had picked for me, wondering what I had done wrong when a song popped into my earphones. 

You can’t crush me, I am not a flower. 

You can’t drown me, I can breathe underwater. 

His voice gave me goosebumps. I hugged myself tighter to not feel anything. I tried to forget why I was in a new city, forget the house I knew of, forget each inch of that swimming pool. By the time Simon picked up the guitar, I was not in my body. I was part of his music, floating in the air on a bed of guitar strings. 

I try not to think about that night, and to clear my mind, as Mrs Verma had asked me to. I listen to her meditation tapes where she talks about focusing on my breath. I twist and turn for several more hours and fall asleep around six in the morning. 

***

I wake up groggily at nine and decide to work from home.  

I slowly start dusting and cleaning the house. I generally put on loud music for this, but I clean the house in silence now, the only sounds are the traffic horns blaring from the window. Then, I shower for an hour, scrubbing, polishing, shampooing, conditioning and lathering my body in vanilla body oil, everything without music. 

When I am back at my laptop, I have two messages. 

Shyam – Can we meet this weekend for a coffee? 

Alex – I need you in the office at 9 am tomorrow for a client meeting. Yesterday’s deck looks fine.

After attending some remote team calls and reworking on the deck, I finish work at nine at night. I think about Shyam’s message for some time and start scrolling through social media for more news. 

***

Another night of no sleep, but I show up at the office the next day. I couldn’t drive in this state, so I took a cab and asked the driver to turn off the radio. 

“You should do the presentation today,” Alex says. 

I have always just passively sat in these meetings. I am not ready. 

“Umm, Alex, I can’t. I have a headache and…” I explain. 

“Do it, it’s your design. It’s time you step up.”

I start tapping my feet nervously. I scroll through the presentation that I had prepared. Shyam gives me a thumbs up. 

There is no time to panic. I get up and walk to the head of the table. I can’t feel my limbs, but my body seems to be moving in the right direction. It feels like I am underwater, my lungs are full and heavy. I try to breathe. I play with the keyboard to buy some more time. When I open my mouth, no sound comes out. My phone beeps, and it’s Mrs Verma saying she has a slot open for the weekend. Some air enters my lungs, and I start speaking. 

“Dress better next time, okay? We have the next one in a month.” Alex says after the meeting.

I have learnt to read Alex. No feedback is good work. I sigh in relief. 

***

“I am glad you are doing well at work.” Mrs Verma says.

Today, I take the liberty of walking around the room and checking her bookshelf and paintings. 

“Yeah, me too.”

“So now we need to focus on fixing your sleep cycle. Are the audios helping?”

“A little bit,” I say as I find a layer of dust on the table where there is a vase with half-dead flowers. I wish I could live with her. I could keep everything clean here. 

“Sammy, have you thought about switching to a basic phone? It’s helped a lot of people.”

I stare in shock and shake my head. 

“Just a suggestion..”

“Do you think I should date Shyam?” I ask her. 

“Well, dating could actually help you a little to open up and…”

“No, not like that, I am asking… umm.. think like you are my friend.. Or like my mother… do you think I could date Shyam?” 

Mrs Verma doesn’t say anything for some time. I have crossed some line. I come back and take my chair.

“Sorry, leave it,” I say. 

“Yes, I think you should date Shyam,” Mrs Verma says. 

I have cried so many times in this office that I no longer feel ashamed. 

“I might be too much for him,” I say. 

“As a friend, as a mother, I don’t think you are too much for him.”

***

Simon has been arrested. There is an apology on his social media that says that he is sorry for upsetting the fans and that we should try to believe his side of the story as well. I read and reread it. It’s not his writing. I work in the media, I understand these things. There is a team responsible for handling these situations. These are not his words. I know his words. 

Priya sends me that post and writes, “Now we have to listen to a rapist’s side of the story? Have women not suffered enough?” 

There is a video leaked where he is walking to the court, and for a brief second, he looks at the camera. I pause my TV on that screen and stare back at him. His hair is unkempt, and he is wearing a sleeveless shirt that says – “Nothing matters anyway.” 

I take out the box from my cupboard that the concert tickets came in. It’s the VIP stand. I would be a few feet away from him, he could have actually looked at me. It looks stupid now, I throw the box across the room. 

I switch off the TV and sit several minutes in the dark, before going to the bedroom for the breathing exercises. 

***

The case goes on. There are fresh accounts every day. Two more women have come forward. One of them has evidence of transactions in her account. She has posted the private chats online. I read through each sentence written by Simon to find the truth that the world is not able to see, but all it says is that he can’t remember what happened. He was very drunk and he is sorry. He is apologetic in the chats, and that warms my heart a little, before I spiral again into an endless social media storm where people make fun of his apologies. I remember my mother’s words then, “Your uncle is really sorry, Sammy.”

Then the lawyers sue the women, claiming the chats to be forged. The transactions don’t add up, and the dates don’t match. After a week, the women have deleted their social media accounts. I follow random accounts of everyone following the news carefully. I skip sleeping one week, watching two documentaries on women conning artists for money. Then I read up on all the men who were wrongly accused in the MeToo movement. 

***

The next presentation goes badly in the office. I stammer through the hour with the client. When they ask questions, Alex steps in and does his magic. Later, he calls me to his cabin. 

“What should I do with you?”

My parents would have had the same question before sending me away, I think. 

“I am sorry Alex, maybe…Maybe I should quit.”

“I would have fired you myself, had you not been so good when you wanted to. You are the most creative person in the office. But you are not ready for the presentation.” 

He says this with an agitation that the compliment falls flat. 

“I will do better next time,” I say. 

“No more presentation, better you work on just the designs.” 

***

For the final day of the case verdict, I took a leave from the office citing that I am on my periods. I can trade that for working on my periods, but I am glued to the TV, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and other news apps. I can’t focus on work. I order ice cream tubs and eat them in a single sitting, and then I go to the bathroom as my stomach starts to hurt. 

People on the internet have memes about how he will be let go because he has money and power, how all convicts are let go. I don’t know what I am hoping for. I want Simon to address the crowd, address me, tell me all this is fake.

The verdict stuns me even though I knew it was coming. He is acquitted on grounds of insufficient evidence. The whole internet is divided. There is no fan-addressal. Simon walks out of the court in the same shirt, looking tired and upset.

I go inside my cupboard, take out the ticket box and throw it in the bin. I take down each poster on my bedroom wall and then tear it apart. Anger erupts inside me. It’s not Simon I am mad at. It’s that I will never know what happened. It’s that I never told anyone what happened to me. 

I try to clear my head and rock myself to sleep, but then throw my phone across the room with Mrs Verma’s soothing voice playing on it. I lay awake the whole night, staring into a dark silence.

***

“Are you still coming to the US?” Sahana asks me on a call. 

I don’t have an answer. I have my laptop open and I am working as she is speaking. 

“The concert is still on, even though people are boycotting him,” she says. 

I have uninstalled all the apps, I feel cut off from the world, and the silence is killing me. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Did Mom ever tell you why I moved to Bangalore?”

Sahana takes a minute to answer, and then she whispers, “I found out very late.”

“Okay.”

“I know…all this..”

“It’s okay, I was just wondering, that’s all.” 

After some awkward silences, we cut the call, but, the next day she drops me a message. 

“I have cancelled the concert tickets, please come, I want you to meet the baby.”

***

“It took you a month to reply to my message.” Shyam texts. 

I ask Shyam out finally, and we are meeting over sushi in Indiranagar, after office tomorrow. I feel like cancelling it several times, but restrain myself from sending that message. I have worked nonstop over the weekend on a submission that Alex replied with – ‘There’s the Sam I know!’

I have taken Monday off to just relax when my cook comes over and she showers me with her regular compliments on how everything is spotless. 

“Something’s off,” She says as we are sipping tea. “The walls are bare. And why everything so silent? What happened to your speakers?” she asks. I pass her a butter biscuit. 

That night, I listen to Simon on full volume. 

Thank you for your love and cheer, I will take it from here.

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_{Archana Nair works as Program Manager in the Tech world of Bangalore. She is a passionate storyteller who strives to capture the angst of the current generation of women. She enjoys long walks, worrying over small things, and traveling far and wide. Her stories unpack intense layers of family ties and relationships. Her short stories and book reviews have been published in Outofprint, Usawa Literary Review, Muse India, Spark magazine and Scroll.}

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Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash

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