Girl on the Water

On the edge of the water a young girl stands and looks out at the infinite. The whistles of the water and gentle crashing of Mother Nature's chaos know precisely the right way to lull her towards them. She and the water never learned to get along and her visits with the giant never ended well, emptying her lungs of their life and narrowly avoiding staying with her new liquid friend for the rest of time.

Still the young girl found herself staring out at the lake, her hometown out in the distance in all it's beautiful lights and Friday night debauchery. The small town was only alive when her friends and peers were out injecting it with the essence of their youth. Making mistakes and drinking a few too many was the only excitement the tiny town knew anymore. Gossip dies quickly here when everyone knows everyone they care to know. Folks either learn things first hand or discount them quickly and getting away from it all was startlingly easy.

Anyone could've stood where she did. Any car could've pulled up besides hers and out could've stepped anybody on their own whim, at their own pace. The lake wasn't private and no one knew how much it meant for her to stand there. No one knows the kinds of things the water whispers to her or the wind tries to convince her of. She'd tried to explain to people but it was always tainted in the fear of what people might think of it. What would people say if she told them what she hears here? What would her friends think if they knew how much she loved to stand on the water motionless?

Surely no one would tolerate her nonsense that the wind is trying to communicate with the way it lifts her hair behind her or the way it gets angry as she argues with it about her future. Even the lake and the wind can't seem to agree with each other as they fought and struck each other.

Her eyes scanned the distance able to name nearly every building in her sight from how long she'd known this place and how intimately she'd tried to find more to love about it. There wasn't a mouse hole in the town she hadn't tried to explore like the wardrobe that would bring her somewhere better. Not one of those buildings held what she wanted to know. Not one of her friends could understand the way she spoke with the lake and not one of her thoughts could properly draw the conclusion as to just what made her want to step forward.

Just one step and already her boots were kissed by the edge of the water again and again by the tiniest movements. Not a second before she was ankle deep, and paused again with a large breath.

They don't know me here. No one will ever know me here, but so long as I stay with the water everyone seems to love me. The more I come here the more people want to see me, want to know what I know about this place. The lake holds so many secrets that people only want by stopping me from having them. I can't stand people. I can't stand them trying to keep me from my place. Not today. Today's the day I'm going home and staying home with mother. No one else can hurt me there, and finally the water from my eyes can join the water of my best friend. Good night sleepy town. I can't say it's been a good day but I can at least say it's been blissfully short.

Ankle deep turns to waist deep in a breath, and the only sound as she was submerged was the wind angry again as it tried to keep her hair dry while she visited. It was useless though as her best friend fought back against the wind, engulfing and swallowing her easily. Her last gift to the wind was a lungs worth of bubbles.