It was a breezy day on the lake, choppy water reflecting infinite shards of the midday sun in all directions, somehow brighter and hotter than their source.
He sat in the cool of his screened-in porch observing the lake. Should he go out there again he wondered.
The paddle would be a slog. Could be dangerous if the wind picked up. But on the leeward side in the distance he could see the calm, shaded waters, glassy and pristine, perfectly mirroring the densely forested shoreline with its inviting spaces formed by the mouths of the dark winding feeder creeks.
The other creeks he’d explored each ended in muck and mire. But maybe these were different. Maybe they opened up into new lakes of unimaginable beauty. A thirst arose in him.
It would be a lot of doing, a lot of sweating. And his porch was calm and shaded and perfect. He had everything he could imagine he could ever need.
Ahhh, fuck it, he whispered, as he creaked the screen door open and walked down toward the sun-paled canoe in the worn grass by the water’s edge. The door whapped shut behind him.
Last time, I promise, he said aloud purely out of habit with no meaning at all behind it, like an addict who’d lost even his own trust.
Like a soul who’d already lived too many lives and still…just…couldn’t get enough.
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