A Flash of Lightning

It's hard to understand the importance of connections without having lost them or finding one you never knew you needed because time comes in waves and the moments of our lives are shifted like loose sand; even carefully guarded structures can wash away with enough passes.

In mid June the Scottish sun is bright and pale, almost white in its intensity as if even when there's heat the world recognizes than in this land of mist and fog the equator is a concept only loosely tied to reality. As the solstice approaches the days draw long, like fishing line being reeled out by a great hand; the day begins at four in the morning and may stretch to almost midnight, leaving inky blue blinks of night between each sticky stretch of brightness.

Stacy is the kind of friends you never knew you needed, and walking proof that age is indeed just a number (though not in the way creepy men on Reddit say it); sixteen years older than me, small and vivacious, perennially cheerful and optimistic to a fault despite being grounded. Practical. She gives, as the kids say, 'big mum' energy... and she is; she has a child in her twenties but as we wind through the country roads in my wheezing car she's brimming with childlike energy herself.

"I can't believe you've never been out here," I've said it before and I'll say it again; she's been abroad dozens of times, but somehow has barely left her own city in her home country.

She's talking, but the words are muffled by the music and snatched away by the wind. It doesn't really matter; its just nice to see her happy as she chews a protein bar and watches the world go by. I don't think she'll ever understand that falling into this job, this job I was underqualified and underprepared for, falling into her office and under her wing, has saved my life. Really; if I'd stayed in that call centre I'd be dead for sure. If she hadn't brought me out of general admin and into her sphere I'd probably have moved on by now.

"I can see the water," she says pointing vaguely,

"Not that one, we've got ten minutes yet," I reply and the bubble of happiness stays. Its so easy to forget how to enjoy familiar places, but the excitement and appreciation is infectious. These winding roads, the shady, scrappy woods, and the black, mineral rich water we're going towards is nothing special. Not really, but its not concrete. It's not busy. In short, its not the city; its the kind of place you don't go to unless you live nearby or know how to find it.

It's mine in a way I can't define, and I want her to like it. I want her to take a piece of it to.

Deep in the cool, shady gloom of the treeline we crunch into what can barely be called a carpark; its small and uneven, mud on the ground, gravel uneven and patchy, a rusty gate to a logging site behind and the black water ahead.

"It gonna be so cold," she says it like its a benefit rather than a worry, which is exactly what I want; excitement for the experience.

"Not too cold, its colder in March, it's had some time to thaw."

One either side of the car we strip and pull on swimming costumes in tandem, don swim shoes, gather towels; the backpack with a thermos of soup and two sandwiches waits patiently. I usually come alone, but this is better. Somewhere in the distance people are laughing, just two or three. One could be a child; out here you can hear everything. You could hear God whisper, if you believe in that.

Bags on the coarse mud, towels dropped we wobble without grace into the water, hissing and gasping as the chill grips the ankles, the knees... shriek when it hits the crotch and finally dive in. Just like that wild swimming is something she can say she's done,

"not as bad as I thought it'd be," Stacy says through chattering teeth as the white hot sun beats down on the cold water and a father screams in girlish shock down the shore, splashed by his child.

"You get used to it." The words are short, tightened by the way the cold tightens my chest muscles and makes breathing a shaky affair in need of focus. But we do get used to it and the world starts to go still. Nothing but the lap of calm water, the murmur of the distant family, and the hum of small boats far from our position, the fishermen casting their lines far. I'm waiting, waiting for it to happen,

"It's so quite out here."

"You like it?"

"It's lovely."

The back and forth trails away until it happens; time starts to melt. Hours could have passed, or minutes, when she laughs and points, delighted and surprised,

"Did you see it?" She asks and I turn my head. The water is rippling but clear,

"see what?"

"A fish, it jumped right out!" She says, "right out the water."

Sure enough it does it again; a streak of silver, muscular and vital and twisting as it breaches the black surface of the water like Icarus reaching for the sun then disappears again. And again... and again as if to say I'm here. You're not alone.

As if to ask what the fuck we're doing in its house. Which is fair when you think about it,

"They're coming over," Stacy says, meaning the fishermen, and sure enough they're puttering closer in their low green boat,

"They won't come too close, they wont want us near their lines," I say it to reassure before I realize she's thinking about the fish. And so am I; it's ours somehow, so without agreeing to, we swim a little further out, put ourselves between its last known sighting and the barbs of the hooks, unsure how much good it can do.

"Never seen anything like that," Stacy says as she skulls in the murky, peat rich water, the reddish particles clinging to the hair on her arms, and mine,

"Me neither."

"Fuck off,"

"No really," I can tell her that truth, I want to, "I've been coming here for years. Never seen a fish do that."

And though we're looking around it doesn't do it again. The natural world came to say hello and disappeared back into the depths on its own time, as it should... but the streak of silver is deep in my mind and behind my eyelids like a flash of lightning. Elusive and illuminating.

"Is the soup still hot?" She asks and I know she's hungry so we slowly crawl back, leaving the fish to his chances with regret, perch on the explorer mat that's technically for dogs, and find a way to decant the chicken noodle soup into two travel cups, dip thick, unsophisticated sandwiches into the broth, and watch the water shift with ruddy skin tinted by cold and peat sediment.

"Do you want me to drop you at the bus station or-"

"No lets do something-"

"Only if you're not busy."

"I've got all day."

"Ok, you can shower at mine if you want. I can make us some tea... or we can go to the pub. Or both.. there's an arcade in the bowling alley," I can see a day of possibilities opening up. Two grown adults with schedules that don't clash; a flash of lightning caught in a bottle, impossible to predict, and in the water the fish leaps again.

"An arcade?" Stacy asks and I can see the mischief in her eyes,

"Aye, they've got a life sized Hungry Hippos and a massive Space Invaders. You can win tokens," I reply, and before the fish hits the water, before the words have really left me, I know that it's a plan.