The water was inviting, beckoning like a comely young lady. Not as hot as it was, but still hot enough to persuade me to creep my way in. My friend, Ronnie, was already in the water watching me. "I have to do this slowly.One inch at a time", I said. He laughs and starts to swim around, telling me that he was headed to the floating docks out in the water. I watch him as he swims swims toward the small Astro-turf covered platforms that kids were wrestling on and throwing each other off of.
The water slides up my legs as I shuffle down the incline of the boat landing. Cool water that takes your breath as it claims more and more of your epidermal real estate. At first you just want to rush out of the water all together;it's natural, I tell myself. Holding my body there until it passes, then I'm used to it.
By now, Ronnie is more than half way to the docks.He is a strong swimmer, bobbing up and down in breast-stroke fashion, looking a bit like a dolphin racing under the bow of a ship. I begin to make my way in the water and I notice how it feels heavy against my body, as if it were lightly trying to squeeze the air from my lungs.
Swimming has never really been a big pass time of mine. I mean, I did as a kid, in the local river on summer days gone by, but today something was different. Something felt ominous as I reached the half way point. This is when I flashed to my childhood, a repressed memory leaping forth the way a swarm of bats might leave a cave. I flashed to being helpless in the open water, flailing and sinking with the icy grip of death on my ankle, tugging me down. I recall the distinct feeling that the water, no, the lake itself wanted to keep me there forever in it's enveloping embrace.
Looking up from under the water I saw warbling images of distorted trees stretched and contracting at the whim of the liquid, then a hand bursting through and grabbing me, pulling me up and out of the water. I was lucky that day, surviving only because there was a skilled boater nearby who caught me before it was too late. There are no boats this time, just water and the docks that seem impossibly far away from me, as if they were spooling out at the same rate I swam; maddeningly out of reach.
It's an optical illusion, it has to be. My thoughts race as panic begins to creep in. I feel my body becoming vertical in the water, a sense of sliding downward, my tired body struggling to hold itself up on the water. This notion began to form in my mind, the idea that I should just quit and let the lake have me. To go easily and quietly into the abyss. To succumb;surrender. This is what terrified me the most, was I really ready to give up so effortlessly? Was my grip on life tenuous rather than tenacious? Or was it the lake, overwhelming me with it's power, trying to swallow me down into it's depths? I know now that the water, no, the lake, yes the lake was after me like so many years ago. This time it has me dead to rights as I am stranded somewhere between the shore and the docks, those goddamn green docks that seemingly won't allow me get close to them.
Around me the water begins to stir and swirl and I see small vortexes begin to manifest then dissipate, then manifest again only bigger. The only thing I can do is tread water and stare mesmerized at the event taking place before my eyes. Bigger and bigger the vortexes become joining each other and growing bigger yet.
Snap out of it! I scream at myself as I realise the water squeezing me around the chest, forcing out the air. Frantically I claw at the water, trying to swim out of the hell I now face. The water is alive! God help me the water is alive and I am it's prey! I look around and the vortex is now more like a depression in the water, like a hole dug out of the sand with me at the bottom, and maybe I've gone insane but I swear that the depression in the water looks like a the palm of a giant hand. The water begins to cave inward, avalanche like, viscus fingers cascading down into a grasping, closing fist and burying me in the water. I swim up as best I can but it feels like running as hard as you can on a treadmill;swimming in space. And now I distinctly feel a cold hand on my ankle, a hellish anchor completely unhampered by my protests. Terrified I struggle toward the surface, wavering distorted images locked in my eyes as I nearly break the surface. I want to live!I want to live!!!A strong tug on my ankle pulls me back down and all goes black and cold.
When I regained consciousness, Ronnie was over me, having just performed CPR. Weakly I asked him if he saw what happened. "You were there one second, and then gone the next. you're damn lucky I was paying attention," he paused, "you could have died."
Don't I know it.
In the days that followed I told anyone who would listen what I saw that day, what happened, and how they should stay out of the water. They all regard me like I am crazy, a UFO abducted creep, fresh from a visit by little green men. I know what I saw that day, and I know it happened, and I don't care if they don't believe me. Something lives in that water. It doesn't go after everyone, but when it wants you, it never forgets and can wait forever.
Making my way to the end of the docks connected to the shore I stare at the water, wondering what it wants from me. What could give a lake the unearthly power it wields?"You will never have me!Understand?Never!"I yell at the liquid.
Just then water splashes up from the surface, onto my leg. Horrified, I look down and see the pant leg near my ankle was wet in the shape of a grasping hand. Sprinting I reach my car, put it in gear and leave a cloud of dust and tire smoke hanging behind me as I speed away.
I'm never going to the lake again.
Ever.
