The Cucumber Craving Kappa

Recently, the Stuy Recreational Swim Club opened the first floor pool to all students after school every Friday. Bothered and hot from AP exams, I decided that a dip in the pool would cool my mind to numbness so that my brain wouldn’t fry by the time Regents and finals season rolled around. Since I have 10th free and the swim gym class wasn’t in the pool on a particular Friday, I had the mischievous idea of sneaking in and having the entire place to myself for forty minutes.

I know that food isn’t allowed in the pool area. But hey, who the hell was going to know or notice that I was eating a cucumber sandwich by it? (Potential onlookers being distracted with promposals and/or crippling senioritis.) I didn’t get past two bites before a cucumber slice slipped away from the bread and fell into the water with the gentle “sploosh” of a coin thrown into a fountain. But unlike a coin tosser, I definitely would’ve NEVER wished for what events unfolded afterward.

I tried to retrieve the slice from the water, but the moment my fingers curled around its edges, a reptilian hand pulled me into the pool! I was submerged completely, without any air in my lungs to tide me over. Panicking, I thrashed around in an attempt to get away from whatever was pulling me further into the water’s depths. I did not want my spirit to roam Stuyvesant, mournfully wailing about how I died because of a giant FROG or whatever was trying to drown me.

A surge of adrenaline rushed through me, and I channeled it into my arms before elbowing something incredibly scaly with all my might. The clawed limb released me, and I swam for air. When I broke the surface of the water, that first breath of oxygen was my most thankful.

I heard a loud noise behind me and turned around to find myself face-to-face with a kappa. He looked exactly like how traditional artwork depicted him: a humanoid mashup of a grandfather who has cheated death for far too long, a turtle that has bathed in the algae and mud of the ocean deep, and a duck that wished to poke its beak into undersea affairs. Bluntly stated, he was ugly. But it was the kind of ugly that is also simultaneously very, very cute. He was an ugly, cute creature that was a divine entity who was capable of not only killing me, but of consuming my soul afterwards as well. (So much for trying to RIP in peace.) Nervously, I put my hands up in a gesture of surrender, hoping that this lethal river god would have mercy.

I tried to meet his gaze, but I then noticed that he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at my swimsuit. It was then that I realized that because it was a green one-piece, I looked like a giant cucumber. Now there’s a whole load of info about kappa that I’m omitting because there’s only so much that can be crammed into an article, but just know that cucumbers are amongst their most favourite things to eat.

I knew that my cucumber sandwich was right where I left it, but I was too far away from the diving platforms. That left only one option. I took a deep breath…

And ripped off my bathing suit.

It’s not everyday that you need to strip in front of a deity in a life-or-death situation, but I bet YOU wouldn’t have been able to propose a better solution in my position. I threw the swimsuit at the kappa and then when I reached the diving platform, I threw the sandwich at him too. Immediately after I sprinted into the changing rooms, feeling that embarrassment that only accompanies inappropriate nudity. As I was trying to simultaneously dry and redress, I heard the kappa scream an ugly, enraged, amplified croak before the sound of tumultuous water followed. Immediately afterward, there was flooding from underneath the door and I was knee-deep in lead-ridden, new chlorinated pool water. A band-aid floated past my shin. I wasn’t going to stay to see what happened next. I was out of Stuy before you could say “Atlantis.”

Thank god that the cameras were malfunctioning that day, because apparently “major damage” had been done in the area and swim gym was going to be canceled for the next few years (unaquatic freshmen rejoice!).The school administration is still trying to hunt down who was responsible for the damages to get them to pay for the costs, but I’m pretty sure that my soul, sleep, and meaningless contributions to Stuyvesant have been payment enough these past few years.