“You recall moments like that. Nostalgic. Stripped from an
inexplicable version of genuine bliss. Being abruptly torn from a
dream quickly forgotten. The large hands of your father callous and
warm grasping your shoulder. He beckons you. You slowly rise from
rest. All your relatives remain strewn across the linoleum floor.
Peaceful. Still. You’re so careful not to let the screen door slam as
you exit out the back. The day is just waking. You feel something
symbiotic, ineffable as you walk down to the lake. The cement path is
cool from the night. Dew remains on the blades of grass. Birds make
their calls. Your father already stands knee-deep in the lake, getting
the rest of the equipment into the rowboat. You walk off the concrete,
through the wet lawn and step slowly into the cold lake water. Minnows
keep safe distance from your colorless white feet. Sand works its way
between your toes. The current creates undulating ridges in the
lakebed. You watch slowly as with each step your feet crash into the
natural formation. Underwater plumes arise from the miniature dunes.
And as much as you feel like a giant, you experience partial guilt for
destroying the natural creation of the tides. Your father lifts you
into the aluminum boat. He places the life vest on you. It’s moist. He
must have dropped it in the lake. You wrap your arms around it and
huddle for warmth. ‘We’ll get out in the sunlight, and you’ll be
fine.’ Peering over the edge, you can still see the bottom of the
lake. Minnows following, then dispersing with every row your father
makes. Back again, then dispersing, back and forth, to and fro until
the boat gets further from the shore and they retreat to the shallows.
Wiggling wet sand off your toes, you watch as your father fixes your
line. He keeps going on about catching the mother of them all. Out in
the middle of the lake you can smell summer’s musk. Wiping the sleep
from your eye, you cast out the line. Dad hands you a Coke. And even
though it’s six in the morning, and your mother wouldn’t approve, he
wants you to drink it. And you do, gladly. That sweet syrupy taste
washing past your palette, the filial burn on the back of your throat.
You smile. He smiles. A sweet moment. One you question its very
existence. How could something so simple, pure, enjoyable ever exist?
The world was coated in majesty then. Now the veneer has worn. The
color has become faded and grey. The cottage sold. The lake filled.
You grew up. Things changed. You witnessed your father lose his aura
of invincibility. Then you realized his invincibility never existed.
What was once an inexhaustible, wide-open world now became a very
finite place, with borders and limits. You were no longer colossal,
but a spec, on a blue spec, circling a yellow spec, in a vast abyss,
very unknown and very forgettable in the celestial conversation. And
so you recall moments like that. Oneiric. You miss them. They remind
you of a time when things were full of limitless potential. Everything
was pure. A boundless Shangri La. It’s a farce, and you know it. But
you like it. What alternative do you have? The Truth is brutal. In the
face of such savageness, what is one to do? Pull your collar up and
embrace the cold. Because even though you know the high fructose corn
syrup and phosphoric acid are slowly killing you, the Coke still
tastes as sweet as it did on those early summer mornings. When you
cast out that line, and hoped to catch the mother of them all.”
