What you ate for breakfast this morning is a mystery – forever locked away from your frontal lobe, or whatever part of the brain it is that controls memory. It isn’t significant, it’s lost. Unlike that day. May 27, 1997.
Everything about that day, from the orangey-pink color that touched the mountains as the sun rose, to the silken feeling of his hair against your hand as that fiery orb slipped below the horizon, is forever branded upon the back of your eyelids.
Each time you close your eyes, to sleep, to rest, to blink, it starts up again – a micro-movie, destined to haunt you for the rest of your days – making sure you never forget.
You dove again and again; the icy water stole your breath and clamped down on your lungs like a vice – just like now. No, no, not like now.
Then you could hear the soul-piercing song of a loon as it flew low over the lake and you dove – searching in vain through the inky waters until the pain in your chest forced you to surface. Again and again.
Stop it! You don’t have time to think about that now. Dive. C’mon, you can do it! Dive! This water is nothing like the lake…
The lake was gorgeous that morning. So high in the mountains that the ice had just broken up on it and giant chunks floated on its placid surface. They reflected the cotton-candy colors of the sunrise too, along with the water, though less intensely. The sound of water birds calling to one another and early morning insects found their way to your ears and made you smile.
He’d never been to the lake before and the look of wonder on his face as his bright blue eyes flitted from one thing to the next was as magical as the tranquil scene around you. The morning had been fun, wandering along the shore, watching him pick up freshwater snail shells and examine them between his chubby thumb and forefinger before tossing them into the lake, giggling at their quiet splashes.
There are no snail shells here, no loons, no lake – you don’t have time to think about all of this – dive damn it! You need to dive – the water is rising. Your entire basement is flooded – almost up to the rafters. This water isn’t black, nor tranquil – boxes, blankets, books, they are all floating on the surface, bobbing in the tiny space between the water level and the ceiling. Dive.
That morning was calm, peaceful, but the afternoon wasn’t.
If you insist on reliving that day do it from underwater – dive.
The afternoon. The two of you had a picnic lunch up on the deck of the cabin, and you snapped a picture of him, jelly spread all around his mouth and chin, sunhat askew. You’d laughed, the pair of you, giggling over the simplest things – two butterflies he thought were fighting and the way Smokey the cat swished his tail back and forth and watched the birds that came too close with a hungry eye.
You only left him for a second – to put the camera back in the house before you went for a canoe ride, just a second.
Do you see it? There it is – just there. Dive! You can reach it. It’s stuck under that shelf…push it out of the way, you can do it. C’mon. You did better that day, try harder.
That’s when the movie starts, the one branded on your eyelids, the instant you came back outside – to find his half eaten sandwich discarded on the deck. You called him, but the only answer you heard was a giggle coming from the water.
Why aren’t you diving? Block out the pain – do it. Get it. When they find you, you’ll have it, grasped in your cold, stiff fingers and they’ll know, they’ll see. They’ll see his precious, darling smile; the jelly smeared all across his chin and his tilted hat, they’ll see the solid gold, oh-so-heavy, frame you put it in, and they’ll know. They’ll know that even though you couldn’t save him then, this time, this time you dove and you got him – you pulled him out of the water. This time.
Dive.
______
©2009 Rhonda Parrish
Rhonda loves sushi, World of Warcraft and writing (not necessarily in that order). She is the editor of Niteblade Magazine and has had her work published by several dozen publications. You can learn more about her and her work at her website –> http://www.rhondaparrish.com
Tags: Rhonda Parrish
January 5th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
[...] also have a short story at Flashes in the Dark today. You can read Dive just by following that link, and Flashes in the Dark is one of those cool webzines that will let [...]