The Shallow End. Ashley Sievwright

'It was one of the most perfect days, only just warm enough, an ever so slight breeze I could see in the hairs on my arm and in the flutter of the flags across each end of the pool but couldn't feel. It must have been the exact temperature of my blood.' On a cloudless afternoon, a man dives into a crowded swimming pool and disappears. Is it murder, a staged disappearance or alien abduction? The Shallow End – a steady freestyle commentary on sex, celebrity and suntanning. The Shallow End was shortlisted in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize.