The Lake

Nothing but the grind of oar in row lock in the stillness and the mist of the lake. He fishes in the skiff, bent to the prow, white paint peeling to show the bare pine beneath. At midday, he sits on the hill, rifle across his lap, and watches grey birds spiral. The wind wails across patchwork plains. By afternoon, he sits in the cabin, plucking birds and skinning fish, the coal fire burns in the corner. In the dusklight, he reads letters, scribbling outs and ink jots sent from her. She haunts his dreams.

Tomorrow is the same and the day after and the day after. Sitting, rocking on the lake, watching the birds, plucking and skinning, reading by the dusk light. Always, always, the self same urge. Seconds-hours. And months indistinct. That thirst unquenchable.

Autumn leaves of red and gold had fallen whilst she kissed him goodbye and said sorry. Her wedding ring shone new, the buyer stood by the oak tree.

New letters never came. He kills time. Fishing, plucking and reading and reading, just here to breathe, like thousands of others, just part of the cycle, just here to breathe.

He sees another. Winding water from her locks, ripples upon the lake like rings in oak stumps, her body a shadow beneath her white dress, wiry and meek beneath embroided lilies. One day, he sees her crossing the plains beneath the hill, red dress and hair torn about in the wind. One day, he moors the skiff and she stands by the gate.

“You are by my gate.”

“Yes,” she says, “I know.”

“Why are you by my gate?” he looks at the gate as if the answer was there.

“I dunno,” she stands on tip toes and curls hair around her fingertips, she has dimples when she smiles.

He uses her later that night, rolling in the coldness and undisturbed silence of the night. He rolls off and she thanks him and he turns and sits on the edge of the bed and looks at the moon and curses, he sits for too long and she speaks:

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he looks over his shoulder and says, “go to sleep.”

Next comes wandering, nights in cold caves, fires made on damp leaves, harassment by hermits in bear skins, lost in guilt, the torment defiles him, loneliness beseeches him. At some point he returns to the lake. She hangs clothes in a picketed garden and his child, beset with his eyes, roves about with a blue truck, the dry grass imagined jungle. A man, cardigan bound, set like stone, watches from some sullen portico, drinking from a tin cup.

The lake still laps and the grey birds spiral and he knows none still, sat in the cabin reading by the dusklight, reading letters from a face he can no longer remember.