Editors' Prize Winner | May 02, 2025

THE SWIMMER 

Jeffery Brady 

Atop the hill in Beck Springs sits the Baptist church, white and lonely on this late November day. The wide oak tree that gives the church shade in summer is barren, clinging to a few last brittle leaves, the reds and orange and gold from October now gone. 

Lucas pulls up the hill in the wagon. In the back is the old chair, tied down with rope around its hickory arms and legs. He can’t decide what to do with it. His boys have been pestering him again. They wonder why he never sits in it, why he won’t even let them sit in it anymore, why he holds on to it. Last night, his oldest, Will, said he wants to build his own cabin and take the chair with him. Lucas said he’d say no more and slammed the door on them. 

This morning, on this new holiday, the one the government wants everyone to call Thanksgiving, Lucas woke up before the boys and loaded the chair carefully into the wagon. He tore the sleeves off an old shirt and placed them under the ropes so there’d be no contact with the delicately woven hemp seat. It was the first time he had done anything with the chair since it arrived. He hitched up Della, the quiet mare, and rode toward town. When they reached the Deep River, he thought he might throw the chair off the bridge, but he admired its handiwork in spite of its history. They kept on up the hill to the church.