Green Waters

Sorry for posting so near to my last story, especially in the same forum, but I needed to get this in before tomorrow (that would be a weekday here. It means my self-enforced computer ban.). Hopefully it'll garner some reviews when the week is done. I was just thinking about going back in time. Rip it apart.

The water is green. I stare; stare at the rippling surface, and it seems that the longer I do, the greener it gets. The hue is nothing like the calm azure that often represents natural bodies of water in scenic paintings. Perhaps it is the trees standing guard around the lake; perhaps it is the micro life dwelling in it. It seems familiar, somehow. Have I been here before? Curious, I tiptoe forward. The mud cakes the base of my feet the way wet earth around ponds do: it plasters dry grass and dead leaves to my soles. I barely notice. The object of my attention is ahead.

I hear laughter behind me, accompanied by a call: “Nana! Nana!” that I do not heed. The lake tugs and pulls me forth, into its fairy ring. I pretend I do not hear. Old women are prone to bad hearing; I block out all noise, I force the affliction upon myself. But it is not hard – the children’s cries disappear from my earshot, the birds cease their tuneless twittering. Even the crickets halt their chirps. Complete, dead silence falls. I feel the pressure of it against my eardrums, feel it stifle me. It makes me aware that I had stopped breathing.

As the water comes within a foot’s distance, I turn from bold to shy, hesitating and yet yearning to take a step into the lake. My foot inches closer, closer, closer… it touches the supposed shade of jealousy, submerges itself into the cool liquid. The cleansing sensation entices me: I take another step, and look down. The sight is not pretty. A brown haze is dispersing, settling. A broken reflection of a grey woman dances around my leg. A fanciful one, I muse. For what other kind would walk barefoot in unknown ground?

The sunlight leaves my form, hiding behind the skirts of cartoon clouds. Where my figure cuts a dark shadow, I can see the bottom of the lake. There are no fish. There are no rocks. Disinterested, I raise my eyes again, allowing the rest of the pond to enter my vision. The lily pads twirl, fairylike, in different parts of the newly-disturbed pool. Even there, my intrusion is felt.

My eyelids droop of their own accord. Not from fatigue – heavens! No! – but from an unfamiliar need, a voiceless command. Then I see it. A slim, black-haired girl is splashing her feet in the water; a girl of the past, a girl who was once me, but no longer. She walks closer, closer still to where I stand. She stops.

A strange music fills my head. What? Where from? I try to open my eyes, but they refuse my order. Images, memories I forgot long ago, thoughts I never remember to think: they flash before me, first vividly, then slowly turning vaguer. I see myself setting down the picnic basket with my grandchildren – then standing in the bus – then walking into the house. It is as if my memories are rewinding, going deeper and deeper back. My husband’s funeral. My eightieth birthday. My son’s marriage. I forget the world outside, my mind focusing on the one inside. Not the real world, but my own. If I bother to think of it, I will, perhaps, feel an excruciating agony. I know it subconsciously, the nagging pain taking a backseat in my head. The confusion forces a soundless scream from my lips, one of frustration, and one that I do not hear.

And all at once, it stops.

- I blink. What am I doing in this mud pool? The fish are snatching at my legs. I must have been here long – the water is still and tranquil. I look down at my feet, but see only my reflection. My glossy black hair slips from behind my ears. Sighing, I walk out of the lake and search for my shoes. There they are – hiding behind a large tree root. I don’t bother to put them on. The mud will only dirty them. Holding them with one hand and tucking my hair back with the other, I return to the clearing whence I came. Mom and Dad might be looking for me.

If you think that the narrative seems to simplify at the end, that's how it should be. She's a teen.