The lake's edge curves and distorts like the reflection on the back of a silver faucet, and the sky is just as broad. But the sky has depth; the sky falls back, collapsing up and towards itself as though running from the shining surface of the water. There are swimmers, boaters, the wind knocks them about. They are red and blue and yellow and white. They bob up and down against the forested green of the shore. The clouds pile up, half the sky becomes grey - the swimmers and the boaters look up, they think it will rain - the clouds drift by.
A sleek grey SUV follows the gravel road along the lakefront. It is far too clean to drive on such a road. A girl is driving. Though she is hardly a girl now, but rather a young woman - she is on her way to see her boyfriend. She checks her hair in the mirror, takes her hand off the wheel momentarily and touches the frizzy locks. She is driving slowly enough not to worry, enjoying the ride along the lake. Enjoying the feeling of motion. Waves on the surface of the lake give the impression she is going much faster than she is. The car, having sat in the sun, smells of hot, new leather.
Out the window the little pleasure boats cruise by. So broad is the lake that she cannot see the other end, impossibly broad, a reflective surface like a sheet of glass caught in the sun at just the right angle. Everywhere cottages with perfect green lawns and sprinklers. Up ahead she can see her boyfriend's place. It is something of a shack by comparison. She parks the car and gets out - the car beeps at her - she ducks her head back inside: she has forgotten her keys.
As she walks down the driveway she is aware that her dress is too tight across her hips. She is a little pleased by this, a little nervous. It is a new dress, a defining sort of piece, a new dress for a new woman, a woman with a boyfriend. The driveway has been recently filled with shale and gravel. It's still very uneven; her heels catch in the holes and she almost trips on the ridges. A little orange Kubota sits idle nearby, waiting to finish the job.
She gets to the bottom of the driveway, comes around the corner of the house into the backyard. A small fire at the far end of the lawn that looks hot even in the bright sun. She spots her boyfriend roasting a hot dog. There are others, too, and this surprises her - she lets her eyes pass over them - they are people she knew in highschool.
Like the pointed strike of a rapier, recognition. She hasn’t spoken to these people in years. But she remembers them and they must remember her. Suddenly their silhouettes become threatening. They form a shining, bright surface against which her own looking, once so effortless, has been focused and reflected back; her mind is thrown backwards by the intensity of this gaze. She remembers how she was in highschool. Her hair a little frizzier, her hips not so broad. She is terrified.
Suddenly her new dress covers nothing, and though the people around the fire have not looked up their eyes are inescapable. She feels herself slowing, her limbs beginning to lock up. Somehow her slender legs continue forward and only the most careful of observers might notice the slight tensing of the calves. And though she makes a valiant effort, each mechanical step takes her nowhere. For a chasm has opened between her and the people around the fire, a chasm impossibly wide, a chasm that grows ever wider. It will eat her alive if she is not careful. Every instinct tells her to run, to turn, but the chasm beckons - there is an opposite movement, she is bound, duty bound to go forward, to march into the danger, for she knows them. She has to talk to them, but she doesn’t know what she will say.
Her mind races. Outwardly it seems nothing has changed, but her face has gone blank and her eyes dull. Like a flash terror has seized them too. All the motion occurs behind the eyes, hidden, the uproar lies beneath. And a great deal of motion: like a bucket in which heavy, opaque waters go back and forth, striking one side and then the next. But the agitation does not cease; this motion does not come to a rest, for the bucket is shaken again and again by reflection. The passions within threaten to spill, to overwhelm the senses, so that nothing can be seen or felt.
The space above the fire shimmers and billows like a sail. Her eyes fall into this spot. The view of the lake behind is distorted. From this vantage point she might be able to steal a glance at the others. She must look, she must know for certain. Her eyes alight on one of them, a boy - and she remembers a party, awkwardly flirting, touching his leg, sharing a drink. Her guts twist. She is turning to stone. Quickly, quickly, back again to the safety of the spot above the fire! She tilts her head, her gaze swings wildly, but it is too late, her motion is stopped. Memory returns unbidden like a flood, she cannot look away. She stands still, stops, the stoniness passes up her legs, along her chest, fixes her gaze. Her mind is blank with terror, a terror of diverted glances. She is thrown further back, it all appears directly to her now, everything she has been before. She looks at them openly now for she has already lost. The tomb is open, the dead pour out. Her vision collapses backwards, on and into itself, rushing like water, the bucket spills, she is drowning, wave after wave of images, she cannot see, she cannot see-
In the corner of her vision, a flash - a leaping, leaping up. Her boyfriend. Carried by the wind off the lake he is lifted and propelled towards her. She is standing halfway across the backyard, almost to the fire, and in a few soundless steps he crosses the great chasm. The gap is bridged, the depth shattered. She feels the stone easing, receding - he arrives in front of her, smiles, she looks at his messy hair - she is free. Once again she can look and see. They begin to talk and he takes her gently with his hand and she follows him over to the fire. The sun is hidden by a cloud. Someone passes her a stick and a hotdog. Behind them on the lake a little boat passes by, sounds its horn; the people around the fire turn and wave.
so true, to be honest