waga 3, lake [january9 22]

relics of billboards counted down the miles to the lake as we passed them. ruinous preludes to a ghost town laid alongside the highway; clusters of wood shacks and well pumps all the same grey, the color burned and eroded away by the sun and the wind. one final billboard commanded we Exit Now to see the Beautiful Medicinal Brinewater of B’Thanguel’s Hidden Lake. we obliged and turned onto a dirt road. it wound downward into a large depression in the surface of the plateau. it was filled with huge and densely packed rock structures. we entered a shaded path that twisted between the natural architecture, fitted together like the mosaic of drought soil. wooden signs with faded red arrows mounted on the rock walls guided us through the winding dirt path. one final turn and the lake was revealed to us.

it was smallish and oblong, contained at sharp angles by low rock walls on all sides but one, where the dirt road became a sloping gravel shore. the water was nearly still. it was protected in the center of a stone labyrinth where idle wind did not agitate its surface. val pulled the car close to the water and coasted to a halt. she yanked the parking brake and let out a sigh.

val: “that took way longer than i remembered”

hector: “let’s get into there”

i stepped out of the car and stretched and stared around. the late afternoon sun fatigued into a hazy yellow. all around us the rock was streaked like Jasper Wall, blonde veins set in steely grey. we were alone here. hector was already ankle deep in the water when i looked back to the shore. val was sitting in the gravel taking her shoes off. i followed after them.

hector: “it’s all muddy in there”

hector stepped gingerly back onto the shore and started pulling his shirt over his head. the muscles in his back twisted and coiled as he fought his shirt off and tossed it behind him without looking. val stood up and loosed her belt. her olive green shorts fell away from her waist. i sat down next to her and quickly pulled my boots off and unbuttoned my jeans. val crossed her arms and grabbed the edge of her t shirt. hector was up to his knees when he stopped and held his arms straight out like a T. he leaned forward and splashed into the water like a wooden power pole. he kicked and swam and beneath the surface his orange boxers looked like fat koi swerving after him. valerie turned to me and smiled. i admired her matching underwear. copper, like the rings in her eyes.

val: “theres a surprise for you in the water”

she made her eyebrows dance as she said it, and then she turned away from me, sloshing into the lake. hectors head bobbed a ways out

hector: “it’s still muddy out here too!”

i slid out of my jeans and pulled myself out of my shirt. i felt like i was made entirely of knuckles, all knobbly and bent as i picked my way across the gravel. i stepped into the cool water and felt softness under my feet. i looked down as i took another step and saw plumes of sediment erupt slowly from my footfall. with every step there was softness that became less and less firm as i made my way out into the lake. i stood for a moment, with the water at my waist. i began to sink very slowly into the softness. i looked out to val and hector. val called to me

val: “did you see yet?”

“see what?”

val: “look”

i looked down again into the water. my pale legs ended at the ankle, my feet were buried in the brown. i looked at my hands just beneath the surface. and then i saw. little pink specks swirled around my palm. i cupped my hands together and brought them out of the water. i held a small pool and in it swam scores of things. creatures. i looked closer. brine shrimp. i looked down at the water again. there they were, all around me, tiny and looping, gliding and everywhere. the lake was filled with billions of brine shrimp. i looked out to val.

“holy shit”

val: “youre standing in it!”

i was sinking slowly still. into shrimp shit.

hector: “this is nasty!”

val: “no its very cool. i like it everyone likes it”

“i like it”

i kicked my feet out from under me and laid on my back. i closed my eyes. i tried to feel the tiny creatures dancing across my skin. i saw orange from behind my eyelids. the sun glared its hotness on my wet face.

gently, i felt val place her hand in the middle of my chest. her fingers were splayed and warm. i kept my eyes closed. her other hand gripped my thigh. the water around me warmed with the new hotness of my skin.

val: “hold your breath”

i inhaled through flared nostrils and locked my throat

val: “ready?”

i nodded.

i felt her fingers stiffen, and in one motion she pushed me below the surface of the water.

the orange behind my eyelids went to darkness, the cool weight of water rushed over my face. i held my body still, laying like a stage girl under the hands of a magician. val held me firm. i felt her fingertips digging gently into my skin and finding purchase on the topography of my shallow set bones. she felt like the sun where she held me.

and in a moment there was stillness. and i felt them all around me. across my forehead and over my stomach and in the arch of my feet and at the small of my back and in the divots of my shoulders. the touch of a thousand tiny ancient things meeting my porous interface in benign indifference. their touch carried the force of a whisper in the space of a pin of static electricity. in hundreds of instants they brushed my surface over every part of me. in the darkness behind my eyelids i saw dancing stars.

fifty miles away was my unlit apartment where i would return later that night, wrapped in my blankets in my dark room, warm in the quiet, the lake would still be laid within the rock maze and teeming with all its life. it was here before i was born and would be here after. it would gently ripple in the cool dark and the hot light and through the ices and storms of every year. it was all here, remaining. and we were here, for just an instant in its history, val submerging me in the time held within it.

val held me with her firmness and the little many flowed across me. gentle and soft was everything in this water.

i felt vals fingers relax. she released me and i rose up to the surface. i opened my eyes to just val against the bright empty sky. she smiled and i stopped myself from saying something i wanted. i thrashed and wrapped my arms around her.

“your turn”

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