Plumbing the Depths

The author walked down from the house, past the gazebo, around the wrought iron patio furniture whose paint was flaking and feet were rusting, and on toward the dock. The dock was only visible from the house in winter, and now it was summer and everything was green, the path overgrown, because he'd come back well before he'd intended and the gardeners had not been to cut things back and trim them into shape.

The house itself had once belonged to a doctor from Savannah who would spend his summers on the lake. The author wondered what the doctor's patients did while the doctor was away all summer. Just not get sick?

That doctor, who'd lived in what they called the Victorian era, even though America had no queen, had had a family: a wife, three daughters, and one son. And he'd had a housekeeper, and a cook, and a nanny for the children. The house reflected all these things. It was Victorian and very large, with a second staircase for the servants and a whole wing at the back in which to hide them. And there was a carriage house, too, that had since been converted to a garage.

In all it was a nice place to live and a quiet place to work, though it was too quiet and too big for him to wander late at night when he couldn't sleep (which was often). And these days he didn't work so much, either. He had ideas, plenty of them, but the effort of sitting down and making them concrete—turning them into written words—had somehow come to be beyond his abilities.

It was a strange thing because he'd never thought words were something one could lose, or that molding them into sentences and paragraphs and whole books would be something he'd forget how to do. It was an art. He fashioned words the way someone had fashioned that patio furniture, and words were better because they couldn't rust (could they? he wondered), but how was it he'd lost the knack of wordsmithing? Was it possible to wake up one morning and simply not be able to do it any more?

The ground began to slope down toward the edge of the lake. The dock was in sight now, the dirt path bald where it had been walked so frequently the hairy grass had worn away and would no longer grow there. The author concentrated on not tripping and falling, lest he roll into the water and no one find him for weeks. His assistant wasn't due in for two, but the author had hoped returning to the house early might jump start his creative juices. The house hadn't helped, the gazebo hadn't helped, the patio hadn't helped, and so now he would try the dock. Barring that, he would hike into the woods and camp like Thoreau if that was what it took.

But no, he wouldn't. He hated camping.

Liked campfires. Disliked sleeping outside.

The author made it safely to the dock and walked the hot, dry length of it to sit at the very end. The lake was low; he could not touch the water with his feet. He even stretched a bit, just to see.

Which is why he was very surprised when the water reached up to touch his toe.

A fish? It had to have been a fish.

The author leaned forward to peer into the clear, cool depths. Far below lay the brown, sandy bottom, green fronds lazily swaying. And yet he saw no fish.

And so when a fist of water reached up and grabbed his shirt, pulled him in, he supposed he wasn't so surprised after all.

Well, the author thought as he went under, at least this gave him something to write about.

The New World

Dawn breaks over Eden. The heavy chain holds the gates. What a lie to say we were exiled. It was our love that drove us ever outward, our longing to explore every corner of our world as well as ourselves, each other.

I say, "I love you," as if the world were new and no one had ever spoken those words before. And you clutch them to your heart like a buoy on an otherwise empty ocean. They will keep your head above the water when all else would drag you down.

Sail on, my majestic, my love. You can conquer the world. And I will be the wind at your back.

Island

A very old piece; I wrote it when I was in sixth grade . . . I composed it in my head while walking home from school, then came home and typed it up.

***

The girl had developed her father's annoying habit of playing with her cuff buttons and watchband when her hands could not find better things to do. Now she walked briskly, her hands fiddling. The breeze seemed to come from all sides, being that this was an island and the winds from the water came from all around. The horizon was pink from sunset, not just in the west but everywhere; it was as if the sun stretched its arms out to hold the island, rocking it to sleep in a crib of water. The girl thought about this as she walked.

There was little tourism on the island. It was too far removed from the other tourist traps to be of interest. There was an airport where the planes were owned by individual pilots who flew them as charters for the few tourists who might come. The harbor was the same; when the people weren't fishing, they might charter their boats. Fishing was one of the island's major industries; crops was another. The rich white people did neither, though. The girl thought about how her father flew to the states for work and then flew back in the evenings unless there was such pressing business that he needed to stay in the townhouse overnight.

The girl continued her walk down the street. There were few cars on the island and none of the streets were paved for them. No, they were all dirt and sand and gravel. The people walked most everywhere. Those who lived in what was known as the Backshores, the part of the island that was mostly wooded, had mules. Some who had made profits on their crops even had carts. Mostly native islanders lived in that out-of-the-way place. The rich white people lived in custom houses with green lawns and palm trees overlooking the white sands of the beach. The girl thought about their stately house and how big it seemed for just three family members and a minimal staff.

The natives did not go to school much; they were needed on the farms, so when they were old enough and strong enough to help, they quit going to school. For the parents, school was not much more than day care. But for the white children education was very important. There was a private academy on the island just for them.

The girl thought about all this as she continued her walk. It was getting darker and she knew she needed to go home. With one last glance at the real island, she turned onto the artificial streets of the white neighborhood.

Dark closed in.