COVERT COMPOSITIONS

Assignment: Describe a lake as seen by a young man or woman who has just committed murder.  Do not mention the murder. 

Words in italics refer to the event or have dual meaning to the event as well as the lake.

I sat silently on the beach, my arms wrapped around my knees, toes tucked into the sand.  Staring. Unseeing. It was an unseasonably warm day for September, yet it did nothing to soothe the chill in my soul.  I sat numb, motionless.    

The endless blue matched the void in my heart.  My spirit united with the expanse before me. I felt nothing.  It was as if time stood utterly still within. The silence.  I could still hear the silence.  That’s when I knew it was the end.  

A salty breeze slid off the water, and I could taste it on the tip of my tongue.  Could smell it. Could still smell the blood.  As the waves pulsed, blood pooled at my feet.  Could this be real?  Did this really happen?  It was so sudden. I hadn’t meant to…I…

A sharp smack sounded directly in front of me stopping my heart.  I leapt to my feet stifling a high-pitched shriek. “Sorry!” said the teen as he grabbed the frisbee then returned to his group of friends.  I sunk back to the ground, my legs Jell-O, my heart pounding. Pounding so loudly and wildly it drowned out any other sound. The sound filled my ears.  My ragged breathing slowed steadily in rhythm with my heart.  The deafening pounding gradually quieting. Eventually quieting to utter silence.   The sound of silence.  The sound of the end.  

I realized I was shaking.  My entire body shuddering. I couldn’t stop it.  I couldn’t stop myself.  I looked down at my hands shaking.  The last time I looked down at my hands, they were strong and confident.  Strong with rage. Now they were weak in the face of what I’d done.  

I suddenly felt sick. I was going to hurl.  I stumbled to a dead log a few yards away, barely reaching it before vomiting uncontrollably.  Dropping to my knees in the sand, I was once again a bystander to the whims of my body as it released the toxicity of the night before. 

When my body finally released me, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.   My insides were now Jell-O. Weak inside and out, I rested against the dead log.  Though my body had purged itself, my mind had not. I still remembered.  I still remembered how it felt.  I still remember…the end.  

As I lay there, the numbness slowly wore off and the world reappeared before me.  Staring up into the blue abyss, I knew I was irrevocably changed forever. I was looking at the world through a different set of eyes now.  Everything was different. Looked different. Felt different. The air didn’t smell as fresh. The sand didn’t feel as soft. The water wasn’t as blue.  Jefferson’s population had dropped by at least one last night.  

Sounds around me started filling my ears, raising to a noisy cacophony, daring to drive me mad.  Mad. I finally felt SOME thing.  I knew then that I would be okay.  I sat up and looked around, checking out the scenery through my new set of eyes.   This time the lake was a mere back drop to the characters playing out before it. If they only knew who I was, what I had done.  

I pulled myself to my feet as my strength and resolve returned to me.  I walked past the frisbee players, the family building sand castles and a mom introducing her baby to the water for the first time.  My first time.  My new life.  

I smiled.  I hadn’t planned it, hadn’t expected it.  Yet here I was…with a new life. I quickened my pace, now light on my feet.  The sand tickled my toes drawing a satisfied grin.  

There was no looking back now.  This was not the end…for me. It was the start of my new life.  I skipped the last several hundred yards to my car.  I was so excited. Today was going to be a good day.