My feet are wet. That’s the first thing I notice. I look down and on the surface of the slight murk engulfing me is the trailing end of white cloth. It floats atop the stagnant surface, slightly transparent. Just below are my feet, squishing in dark mud. Water that I had originally thought only came up to my ankles actually rose to my mid-thigh, giving a creeping chill throughout my core. I was cold and yet the water was warm.
I grip the wet, heavy dress just above my knees and pull though somehow it doesn’t lift. Instead it appears to expand, a white lily in a green bank, quenching itself with Adam’s ale. I pull and pull again, but it doesn’t budge. The free forming airy appearance of my dress in the water acting more like steel, unwilling to move from the foundation it built itself upon. Any progress I was making was in the mud at the bottom of the bank. My feet deeply rooting itself with each pull of the garment. I pull the garment, then I pull up my feet from the sinking earth.
“Need help with that?”
My heads snaps up, the sun’s dancing reflection drawing my hands to my eyes, shading them to see the figure standing at a distance. The water comes up to his calves, his khaki colored linen gripping to his frame, drinking him in instead of the water around us. His shirt, the color of my dress, still dry from the warm air. But his hair could have been on fire, the way it glowed like freshly dawned embers.
“James? What are you doing here?”
“Are you sure I’m the one who isn’t where I’m supposed to be?”