STILL WATER: By Julian Ravage
Thursday, October 28th, 2010Anna stared out across the quite lake. Her eyes would wander from the smooth lake surface to the leafless trees in the distance. A cold wind whipped at her as she let out a deep, frosty breath. Her white dress was stained from walking across the field. Brown and green patches laced the bottom of her dress as dirt caked on her white shoes.
Tears rolled down her smooth skin. The pain in her heart pulsed with each sigh. She slipped out of her white; mud caked shoes and stood at the very edge of the calm lake. Cold water lapped at her toes.
Anna looked away but no matter where she turned, the deep pain danced across her soul. She opened her mouth to cry out but no sound would rise. The pain continued to slither around her heart like a venomous snake. She looked skyward and thought “Why?”
There was no answer. There never is an answer.
She took one step into the dark water. Fits of troubled breathing assaulted her as she took another long step into the lake. Pain drove its claws into Anna as sorrow moved her one step at a time into the lake. Each feeling was a dance partner in this ballet of sadness.
Faces swirled through her mind as every step brought the lake to her thighs, her waist, her chest and then her neck. Anna swam out into the cold body of water. Numb from the pain and cold, for a moment she felt free. Her tears mixed with the lake water like some divine painting.
Her freedom was short lived as the numbness gave way and terrible pain flooded her mind’s eye and heart’s pulse. Her face dipped into the water as she tried to wash away her tears, her long white dress flowing behind her. A crow squawked in the distance.
Anna’s arms and legs moved with a gentle rhythm. She used just enough energy to swim out toward the center of the lake. Her pain filled eyes catching glimpses of floating branches, leaves and ghosts from her past. The warmth from her body trailed away into the gloom as tendrils of cold caressed her.
The black dagger in her heart began to twist. Anna’s hands stopped moving. Her legs became still. She drifted like so many dead leaves in the autumn weather. Spaces of time passed and she was as still as the lake around her.
Then Anna’s body began to sink. Her white dress flowing around her body as the lake slowly began to claim her. She could sense death knocking in the distance. She could feel gentle ghosts tapping at her, trying to merge their sorrow with hers. It would play out so beautifully if she was not blinded by her sad pain. Bubbles rose from her mouth as she took one last look upward into the fading light.
In the gloom and darkness, Anna saw a strip of white with her dying eyes. On the bottom, mixed with many swaying lake plants, lay a woman in a white dress. Anna felt nothing as she drifted closer to the woman facing down into the dark green lake floor. It all became part of her as she drew closer to the woman. Like a gentle blanket cast out into the water, Anna settled on the woman in the white dress.
Anna had no concept of time anymore. She knew it was her own body she was staring at. She couldn’t bring her self to understand, she had been dead for eighteen hours. The cold lake preserved her well. Anna lay with her dead body at the bottom of the watery depths. She caressed her face and cried. Pain ate at her heart like a worm in an apple. Death could still be heard in the distance, knocking, forever knocking.
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©2010 Julian Ravage
