2011, blimey. And no swearing. Now there's a rare old one . . . :)
THERE IS A
LAKE IN A WOOD
Outside of the town so full of crumbling people and
flowing tears, there is a lake in a wood. The lake no longer fills and is
stagnant around the edges, the scurf giving the impression of a distorted,
shimmering halo. On closer inspection, the shimmering halo becomes a disparate
collection of plastic bottles, bird shit water, and broken feathers.
Beside this lake, this
lake in the wood, there sits a man.
Charlie.
Charlie is a family man,
an accountant by trade, a doting father, once a loving husband. But now, at
this moment, he feels himself to be nothing at all. That is why he is sitting
by this lake in the wood on his lunch-break, eating sandwiches from a plastic
box, staring out at the water that no longer moves.
The serenity of the scene
is broken by Charlie's Banana Splits ringtone.
La
la la, la la-la la. La la la, la la-la la-la la. One banana, two banana, three
banana four . . .
The kids love it. His
manager thinks it purile and childish. His wife, whenever it sounded at home, would
raise her eyebrows, hands on hips, mouth clenched tight. And some part of him,
almost all of him, in fact, loved that she hated it. He'd hold her stare,
imbibing her hatred. Saving it up.
Charlie cuts the call off.
Dead.
A man approaches the far
side of the lake and begins to set up his fishing gear on the grassy bank.
Chartlie watches, impressed by the fisherman's deliberateness, his surety, his
sense of purpose. And he is reminded of a book he once read of a man who built
a log cabin by a lake in a wood, and lived there for a year or two, fishing for
his supper, writing down his thoughts in the moonlit evening, alone and
satisfied.
When Charlie had finished
reading the book, he remembered swearing to himself one day he would be that
man building the log cabin, bucking the trend, sticking two fingers up to this
throw-away age of empty conformity and mindless pursuits. He would not be tied
down. But he'd read the book when he was young, when the fire was in him,
before he had fallen in line, compromised his dreams.
Like his father and his
father before him.
Like everybody else.
And now, looking past the
filthy scurf at his feet, into the imeasurable depth of the centre of the lake,
he hates himself for it. he wants to scream himself free of it it.
This life, this daily
grind.
He finishes off his last
sandwich and packs the empty box away in his briefcase. Time to go. But before
he does, he thinks of the man in the book, writing in the moonlight, building
his house out of wood. And he looks around the perimeter of the lake, looks
around for a suitable space where one could construct such a cabin. His eyes
light on space enough, at the far end, to his right. Where a huge oak, long
fallen, lies alone.
Charlie shuts his eyes.
He sees himself cutting the wood with a sharpened axe, checking his plans,
sitting down for a rest on the banks of the lake with the water that does not
move, mopping his brow with a chequered handkerchief.
He is smiling now. The
fever creeps over him.
A good fever.
The fever of being alive.
La la
la, la la-la la. La la la, la la-la la-la la. One banana, two banana, three
bana-
The mobile phone, sinks
to the bottom of the lake. It will ring no more.
An empty gesture,
perhaps, Charlie thinks to himself, but a gesture, nonetheless.
The second step in the
right direction he's made that day. And the kids, he will bring them here, to
this lake in the wood, this lake where the water never moves. They will love
it. He will play on the large, fallen oak with them, tell them the story of the
man who built a house by a lake in a wood, even take them fishing.
He turns once more before
he leaves the clearing. And he gazes out towards the deep centre of the lake
and pictures the mobile phone spiralling down down down to the muddy bottom.
His eyes narrow.
His mouth tightens.
And he goes to fetch his
wife from the boot of the car.