Monday 30 June 2014

The sun on the lake

The sun on the lake

Here I lie, naked and still, on an ancient, narrow raft. The placid lake stretches away into infinity. The sun shines down, and my skin drinks its energy like a greedy child gobbling its favourite treat.

I lie and rest, and there’s peace flowing through every vein. My heart is velvet soft, nestling among the cushion cave of my chest.

I move. I'm just twitching slowly to let the blood flow freely, and suddenly I realise I'm stiff and sore and scorched.

The sun continues to beat down, and there's no cover, no shelter; I cannot resist its prying prodding fingers. I cannot turn away.

I'm alone on the lake with the heat of the sun, and it burns my flesh.

Now I can't resist dipping my hand into the icy water, and I raise a handful to my broken lips.

Refreshed, I plunge my hand in deeper, and dip my face to the surface, but the raft is too narrow, too unstable, and it tips, and I fall.

The cold, tranquil water brings instant relief, and I sink into it, soothed and calm. This is home. Now I'm home.

The water wraps around my aching body, and the silky tendrils of weeds stroke my limbs like a mother tending her baby. I need never leave here again. Down here, alone in the cold and the deep.

A memory from a long forgotten life pesters me with increasing urgency; I can't breathe. I must breathe.

I try to banish it, but the reminder is desperate and I can’t avoid its savage truth.

I pull myself up, up, up towards the surface, but my strokes are feeble and desperate and ineffective.

The slimy weeds ensnare my ankles, and I'm too weak to kick against them.

The water is freezing now, and it rubs sores into my thin, wretched arms.

With every pathetic pulse of pallid energy I pull and pull, up towards the surface, up towards the looming sun.

I break the surface again, my desperation sending ripples though it’s glassy top. I choke and flail and suck air desperately into my boiling, freezing lungs.

I find my frail, flimsy raft, and I pull myself onto it. I weigh more than the iron centre of the Earth. My refuge rocks dangerously, threatening to tip me back into the ice water.

Eventually it settles and I lie there, sweating, panting, my heart like rock inside my echoing chest.

I lie naked on the raft between the icy water and the burning sun, and I can't see the shore and I fear the night.