The Lake

This is something I wrote for class that was fun and difficult and morbid...odd to write. But I kind of enjoyed getting into this mind in a weird way and I got good feedback about the exercise, so I decided to share. I hope you enjoy it. Perhaps I have a future in murder mysteries.

Prompt: Describe a lake as seen by a young man who has just committed murder. Do not mention the murder. 

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The skeleton trees are swaying in the breeze as I stand alone on this lakeshore. The bare bones corpses of tall pines are rotting and dying. That fire last year claimed their souls but hasn’t quite claimed their decaying bodies. 

As I approach this lake, my friend, I watch the sun set blood-red over the horizon. I stand on the edge of the sand, enraptured by the simple beauty of water. This lake has been my home, has kept me company through most of my life. This lake knows my hopes, my fears, my secrets. 

And its about to learn one more. This lake is my confessional booth. This is where I repent my sins. The lake listens. It never says a word. It understands me. It hears me, does not judge. It is the best confidant you could ask for. 

This might be my worst sin yet. I must tell the lake what I did where no one can hear me. If I confess it to the lake, maybe the lake will cleanse me, absolve me of what happened. But no one else can ever know. 

I remove my hiking boots first. My pants, polo shirt and boxers stack neatly on top of them. I can’t hide anything from my constant companion. I must bare all to be forgiven of all. The rocks are sharp and jagged on my feet. Your penance the lake whispers to me through lapping waves. I wade into the murky swells. The water is cold and dull, full of minerals and debris. I can’t see the bottom but I know this lake by heart. I have spent countless hours fishing and swimming and exploring and living in this pool of water. 

I dance fluidly through the ripples to the right where I know there is a deep spot. The minnows are surrounding me, investigating. They want to witness for me, hear me testify. I know they won’t tell anyone either. They don’t speak! Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

My feet are on the brink of the deeper pool within the lake. I gently push out with my toes and begin to tread water, slowly steadily. With one last breath and a glimpse at the darkening sky I plunge beneath the surface, eyes open. I can’t see anything but I must be completely open to the lake. 

I am ready to tell it what I’ve done. I do. I shout it to the water. I scream! The release of breath and confession is exhilarating and gratifying. I inhale. The lake responds by filling me with water. The bitter taste of stagnancy floods my mouth and lungs, but it is refreshing to me. The lake is assuring me that it heard me. It won’t tell. It doesn’t even want me to tell. The tepid water is purifying me! It’s working. I take in more until the dull strings of unconsciousness begin to pull at my mind. Only then do I release, shooting upwards, sputtering, choking out water, gasping for air. 

I swim to the shore line, my body burning. I crawl on hands and knees back onto the sand and rocks away from the water’s threshold. I am now safe ashore, but already missing how the lake holds me in its grasp. One day I will give into the lake completely. But not yet. 

There is one last thing for me to do now. The lake calls to me for the last remnants of my sin. I load my shoes with rocks and sand and knot my clothes around them. With a great exertion, I send them flying into my lake, my secret-keeper. Plunk. I smile gratefully as the bundle splashes into the water and then sinks, bubbling slowly down. 

Now, I can walk away, naked, sinless, purged, and restored. I am refreshed. And no one will ever know. The lake will keep my secret. 

Princess Diana

For this assignment, we were asked to describe a historical event and its impact on our personal lives. I would have written about 9/11, but pretty much everyone was going for that, so I decided to talk about Princess Di. Eventually I will write about my reaction to 9/11 because I think it important for the historical community to gather people's responses from across the nation. I think we should all write down our personal responses to historical events to chronicle our time. 

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Being a princess is a typical dream for a seven-year-old girl. Boys strive to be ninjas or cowboys or superheroes. Most young girls train unceasingly in plastic high heels and fluffy dresses to parade as a pretend princess. Once upon a time I was a princess in training, along with my best friend, Kristen*.

Today most PITs (princesses in training) desire to emulate Elsa and Anna from Frozen. The best part about growing up when we did was that we had a real princess to follow through the news: Princess Diana. The fact that she was no longer a princess due to her recent torrential divorce didn’t matter much. She had been married to a prince and she had two royal  children; that was enough for us. She was glamorous and lovely and elegant, everything you want in a princess. And she had married in to the royal family, so it gave us hope that one day we could be a princess, too. 

Kristen’s seventh birthday party was a Princess Di party. We rode around town in a limousine waving at our royal subjects and had a massive royal tea party in the back yard. We stayed up all night playing with makeup in our royal castle made of sheets and pillows. If Princess Di ever needed a helper, we were ready for her call.

Then tragedy struck on August, 31, 1997. Kristen’s mom sat us down on the couch and explained to us as gently as possible, “Princess Di was in a car crash in Paris. Girls, she didn’t make it. Princess Diana is dead.” Kristen and I squeezed each others hands, dumbfounded. My stomach rose into my heart and hot tears pressed into my eyelashes as I struggled to understand. Princesses can’t die, can they? Princesses are supposed to be saved from disaster in the nick of time by a knight in shining armor. They are supposed to live happily ever after forever with their prince, their one true love.

The mystery around the cause of her death just made it worse. Was it the paparazzi’s fault? Were drugs or alcohol involved? Why wasn’t Princess Diana wearing her seat belt? Didn’t all princesses know to wear their seat belt? Daddy always told us they did.

Kristen and I couldn’t even be around each other for a few weeks. All we talked about were princesses and the only one we knew was gone. Our princess parties just weren’t the same after that. Our princess, the one that belonged to us, had left us. A hole gaped in my seven-year-old heart. Not only was my role model gone, but my idea of perfect fantasy evaporated with it. Life is not a fairy tale, as I had hoped. There weren’t always picture perfect endings. Happily ever after could end in divorces and car crashes.

*name changed for identity protection

Cowardice

For this assignment, we were to choose something we hate and write about it. Ranting was allowed...which led to this piece, for which I do not apologize. In my future non-fiction work entitled Ye Brood of Vipers, you can expect a lot of this. Please reply with critiques, questions, etc.

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I abhor cowardice. I especially despise when cowardice stops people from acting as they should, doing what they are called to do. I have a friend who could be a great leader. She could run for president but she can’t imagine leaving the confines of her home town. What is she so afraid of? Why is the thought of living outside the norm so terrifying for some? Most people like little adventures. They like to get tipsy, spend all night partying, vacation in a different city, etc. But they can’t stand the idea of exiting their known realm. It’s too…uncontrollable. Too many variables could change the way they see the world. And that’s just unreasonable. 

I especially hate Christian cowards, people who say they follow Jesus but really only want to do so if it is convenient. They like to remember Jesus’ kindness and generosity and love, but they skim over the verses that talk about him eating with sinners and prostitutes and cleansing the temple of money changers with a whip. That would require genuinely caring about other people and then doing something about it. That would require taking a stand about something one believes in. And that’s unspeakable. What an uncomfortable idea!

Jesus’ last words before His ascension were “Go into all the world and preach the Good News.” He didn’t say, “Go to church and don’t do too many bad things.” He didn’t say, “Go…treat yo’self because you really deserve everything. You’ve earned it.” He didn’t even say, “It’s ok, you don’t have to go. Just send some money.” He said to get out of your comfort zones and find people who are lost and sick and hungry and naked and imprisoned for the purpose of taking care of them and sharing with them in times of grief and happiness. 

Many Christians cower behind security systems in their fancy houses. Only two live in an eight-bedroom house. (Yes, Brentwood, TN, I’m talking to you.) The idea of interacting with people who are different is just too ghastly to endure. They couldn’t possibly be expected to invite homeless people into their home for the night. How absurd! They would get something dirty! These “Christians” hoard food in pantries larger than some houses and only share on Christmas when they feel guilted. They can’t imagine giving money to people on the streets because those people haven’t earned it like I have. 

The comfort zones that console Christians have become prisons that we don’t even realize enclose us. And we cage in others, too, not just ourselves. Christians now create homelessness through vanity. We create starvation through selfishness. We create poverty through laziness and greed. Christians now create everything that Jesus stood against. Jesus who was himself homeless and poor and hungry and dirty. We would not know Him.

I refuse to be this. I stand against this hypocrisy. I loathe being near people like this. My blood churns and roils when I think about how many “Christian” cowards there are. I contend mightily with this cowardice within myself. Jesus was not a coward. He is a Lion, a fierce and mighty lion with so much love that He cast aside fear for our sake. To be a Christian, we must emulate Him in all respects, especially this one.

--“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” —Stephen Colbert

Loretta and Mick

My assignment was to rewrite the below paragraph exactly, showing instead of telling. I hope you like it. PLEASE post feedback. This type of exercise is the flesh of writing, so I need to know if I need to make changes in my writing style to improve.

    Loretta and Mick were driving down a lonely highway one winter night. The car hit something, making a loud noise. Loretta and Mick bickered about whether he was driving drunk or not, then they got out to see what was hit. They peered into the darkness, seeing nothing.

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 Mick was beginning to doze. They were still a two-hour drive from home and the wedding’s atmosphere had left him in a daze. The drinks, the dancing, and the gaiety all swirled into a night of mirthful relaxation leaving him exhausted after only forty-five minutes of driving. He was operating the only gas pedal on a hundred-mile stretch of interstate, and his girlfriend, Loretta, was zonked in the passenger seat. 

Mick loosened his tie and tugged his sports coat tighter around his body. It was near freezing outside, and the cold permeated through the windows even with the heater on full blast. 

He took a quick glance at Loretta. The hairspray from her bridesmaid up-do was blending with the sickening-sweet smell of alcohol, threatening to give him a massive migraine. But she looked so peaceful slumped against the middle-console. Mick smirked. He loved that mess of a girl. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of tawny fur in the lower right corner of the windshield. Instinctively, he swerved left but not before a squeal erupted from whatever he just hit outside. Bones crunched beneath the right tires. Loretta gasped and shot upright, eyes wild as she flailed about in her drunken stupor trying to make sense of what just happened.

Mick eased on the brakes and began to pull his truck over. Finally aware of her surroundings Loretta moaned, “Oh, I swear I should not have let you drive! Not after that last shot of whiskey.”

“That last shot of whiskey was about two hours ago and three margaritas fewer than what you drank. You stay in the car. I’m going to go see if we need to pull whatever animal that was off the road.”

“I’m going with you. I need to pee anyways, and since we are in the middle of nowhere, this is probably just as good a place as any.”

“It was just a rabbit or something. I just hope it didn’t mess up my new tires. I just had them put on,” Mick groaned as he opened his car door. A blast of frosty wind slapped him in the face as he got out. Loretta adjusted the straps on her heels and rifled through the backseat in search of her coat. Mick jetted around the vehicle and opened her door. He attempted to shield her bodily from the whipping gales. The wind nipped at their ankles and noses like an angry puppy. 

Snowflakes were just beginning to flurry in the sky. The couple peered back through the frosty haze, scanning the pavement for the roadkill they had probably just created. The red tail lights on the car weren’t putting out much of a glow. 

 “Maybe I should back the car up or at least put the reverse lights on,” Mick offered. The dark void beyond the truck’s lightbulbs draped over them like a thick blanket. Mick and Loretta surveyed the mirky black surrounding them, both feeling lonely and vulnerable. The oppressive darkness weighed heavily on their waning spirits. Something just wasn’t right…