The Lake
It was beautiful. It had been an enchanting Neverland of promises, laughter, memories, joy. Everything my eyes had touched was something to explore, gazed at in utter awe and hope.
It was the signifying factor of hope.
There had been no sun today, instead overcast clouds loomed in the sky above, giving the world around it (trees that were bursting to the brim with varying shades of green, the grass that was a little too long in certain places, the water, a crystalline blue on sunny days, now a murky, desaturated color that warned against entrance beneath its smooth, glass-like surface) a distinct morbid appearance.
Yet it still drew one in. It still sang a siren’s song with every wisp of wind that carried the thin strands of hair whipping around my face, obscuring the view I had.
Whenever I looked on at the lake, an eerie silence would fill my mind. All prior thoughts that had originally contaminated my brain ceased, as if they’d never existed. It was as if they weren’t real. As if I weren’t real, but a mere fragment, a piece even, of someone else’s imagination. A creation led around like a marionette on strings; and yet the world around me, the smooth grass, damp and still carrying dew from the early morning, had rubbed against my palm and sent a shudder through my body. As involuntary as it was, it had also been indisputable proof that I was alive.
Now, as I look on at that same hand, touching the grass, there are no sensations. There are no involuntary shudders or chills. There is no wind whipping my hair and taking control of the strands, even as the leaves of the trees rustle behind me. There is nothing but a scene at which to gaze on.
Have you realized yet that I have been talking in the past tense?
