The Lake

Flash Fiction

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A spider, crawling one step, two steps, three steps more, walks across the ceiling to rest in a different place than before.

     It is so happy. Sitting above me, the sun bathes its back. What a place to rest!

     Am I the only one who has seen it?

     I close my eyes; open them again; it’s still there! Wonderful. It encourages me to look around the room. I’ve been here for a few days, but the spider is right: looking will lead me to where I need to be.

     You see it’s curious how the simple, cream coloured room with the pale-green blinds takes me back to the lake. The way the evening light flickers off the ceiling brings to mind the sunlight skipping across its heart-shaped surface; the evening breeze, trickling peacefully through the open window causing the blinds to almost quiver, reminds me of the many fluttering sails I used to see.

     The truth be told, regardless of where I am now, I would always, when the time was right, return to that place. The lake is full of music, if you listen – he would say to me.

     We had one particular spot where we would sit. A small area near the edge of the lake that was enclosed by tall trees – regretfully, I can’t remember what kind my father told me they were – so on sunny days it was nicely shaded. The grass in front of us grew quite tall, sometimes partially obscuring the water, but we didn’t mind. The embankment sloped down to the lake so when the grass reached its peak in the summer all we had to do was sit slightly further back up the hill to improve our view. I remember it was always busy there, though where we were located it was quiet, and the small sailing boats, swimmers, and families strolling around seemed distant – located in another time perhaps. We could see them, but they couldn’t see us.

     Looking back, I realise those times at the lake with my father are only to be found in my memories. It feels a little obvious to put it like this because they cannot be anything but memories. I think I mean to say that there is no chance of making any new ones. The ones that I have are all that I have. I hold them dearly, though some are quite painful. Another element I have noticed, which isn’t helped by my drowsy and tired state, is that none of these memories appear chronologically, nor are they ordered in another, determinable way.

     Not that I can tell. They bob to the surface whenever they choose.

     “I’ve killed so many men,” he said to me one time. “The weight of all their suffering, all their pain, I feel, feel it most sat here.” Despite the glorious sun beaming rays of warmth and joy over everything and everyone, my father was cold and sad.

     I wish, even in the face of its overwhelming nature, he had said more about his life in the war. But I was young. My father understood I wasn’t old enough, and maybe his silence was his way of protecting me.

     On another occasion he said: “You see these trees around us? They grow and die in the blink of an eye.”

     “That’s impossible, Daddy. Look, I’ve just blinked and blinked again. They’re still here.”

     “That’s true! Maybe I’ve got it all wrong,” he said, smiling. I can see now, in a way that I couldn’t then, how his smile was sweet – sweet just for me – but his eyes were aware of a deeper truth about life.

     I blink: losing the spider for the second I have lived my whole life inside of.

     “Once, when you were very young, I sat here all day, losing sight of the sun, until I saw the moon dripping silvery light across the black surface of the water. I watched my childhood playing out right there in the middle, under the starry sky. I was thinking about your childhood, too. The kind of experiences I wanted you to have, the kind of man I wanted you to become: for you to become a soldier . . . I’ll always remember when you told me you never wanted to be one. I was heartbroken.”

     I wanted to reply to him but I couldn’t think of the words he wanted to hear.

     “But I’m glad,” he said. He seemed about to put his hand on my shoulder but he let it fall. “I’m pleased you didn’t. It took me a long time to understand that my job as your father was not to send you down the same path as me but to help you find your own – and then to retreat only when you were ready for me to go. I was never close with my father . . . I’m sorry I pushed you away.”

     I close my eyes for the last time – the room tucks itself neatly behind my eyelids. I recall the words that he spoke which had the most impact on me. “Life is like music. Beautiful and heartbreaking. But it’s not just about the notes, the silences sparkle too. The lake is full of music. Listen to it when I’m gone – I’ll be here for you then, I promise.”

     I have lived the remainder of my time without him, sitting at the lake side. But it is only now that I have been able to accept that he was the lake’s music, the notes and the silences.

     And just like that: one step, two steps, three steps more, me and the spider are no more.

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to comment. If you enjoyed this short story, you might like some of my other writing. I have a section on literature (free to access) and another which contains the chapters of my novel: The Dracula Illusion. The first two chapters are free and the later ones are for subscribers.