Until The Lake Changes
A Short Story
A tale about the maybe that never had to end, and the man who chose it over the truth. āāāāā
I don't know when I started coming here.
That's not really true.
I know when.
I just don't remember how it became every week.
The same day. The same hour. The same spot.
I suppose the body finds its way and I stopped asking.
The lake looks different today.
The water is a flat, pale grey, like the colour of something left out too long.
Small waves push toward the bank and lose their shape before they arrive.
The trees lean into the water at the edge, half in, half standing, like they tried to leave once and stopped.
I watch them for a while.
Maybe it's always been this way.
Maybe I only noticed today.
I donāt know.
ā
The photograph is in my hand.
I donāt remember taking it out.
A picture of a painting.
A lake.
This lake.
Its edges are worn, colours fading, but the light is still there.
Blue pressing into green, the white opening in the sky, and the water so still it doesn't look like water.
It looks like the world has been turned over and placed beneath itself.
Sky below sky. Trees beneath trees. Clouds floating in both directions.
It doesn't look like somewhere a person found.
More like a promise someone carried so long they forgot who it was for.
I lean back and wait.
Because soon, the light will change.
The air will go still. Then the trees. Then the water.
And for ten minutes, just ten minutes in this entire week, the world will finally look the way it should.
Like the painting. Like the photograph.
But it will pass like a breath that nobody caught.
ā
She took this picture at a gallery once.
I remember that day. Not the whole of it.
Just fragments.
The way she fixed my hair when it was out of place. The way she looked at me when she thought I wasnāt looking. The way she leaned against me when she laughed.
Small things.
Nothing anyone else would notice.
We were just walking through. Talking about something.
Iām not sure about what.
But I remember how she stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes looking past me, and something in her went quiet.
She rarely reacted that way.
I followed where she was looking.
A small canvas on the wall, tucked between two pillars, like it wasn't asking to be noticed.
This painting. This lake.
We just stood there. Neither of us spoke. I don't think either of us remembered to breathe.
Like we recognised a place before it had a name.
I don't remember who moved closer.
Maybe we both did.
The warmth of her arm against mine. The brush of her sleeve. And I thoughtā¦
I don't know what I thought.
I just didn't want to move.
Then she turned.
Close enough now I could feel her breath. The scent of her shampoo.
I thought she would step back.
She always does.
But she didn't.
She stayed.
And she smiled.
ā
I still feel it sometimes.
That moment.
That smile.
I don't know why it stayed with me.
It was so long ago.
I can't remember what she looked like anymore.
ā
I turn the photograph over.
Her handwriting sits lightly now, softer than it was.
āI don't know where this place is, or if it exists, but we will find it someday.ā
Someday.
I press my fingers against the words without deciding to, as if pressure might hold them where they are.
It never does.
ā
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ā Cover Image created on Canva. Picture by Mari Helin on Unsplash.com