The Lake

The water looked deep and cold, inviting, on such a hot day. She wanted to step out of her dress and wade into the water. She wanted to walk out into the lake until the waters covered her and her hair fanned out on the surface of the lake like some dark-red lily pad. Only when she could hold her breath no longer would she burst out from under the water and start swimming.

She wondered, briefly, what her white body would look like through the distorting refraction of the water as she swam slowly out from the shore. She found that the thought that the edges of her body would become indistinct, wavy, fuzzy and distorted was a kind of comfort to her. She no longer wished to be sharply-defined against the background of the world. She wanted to blend, to merge - not invisible - but to become one with the world she walked through, and not to feel she was joined in battle, in conflict, with it all the time. She was tired of the constant struggle.

She looked down once more at the surface of the lake, sighed and picked up the package - damp from the dew-soaked grass - and turned back to the path without looking back.