7-14

The air is layered like slate. 

I can feel individual levels pressing on me as we move over the still water, the only movement aside from the periodic ripple as a fish rises to test the surface. There’s been nothing but rain lately and the creek is swollen, its usual boundaries unrecognizable as it breaks free and creeps upward over lawn and tree roots. It has swallowed its own edges; I can see grass and tall plants mingling with long tendrils of aquatic flora. 

What do they think of that muted, heavy alien world? 

The rain lends a new clarity and depth to the water. It smells different, too--distilled and churned by the drowning grass. I don’t recognize the scent, and it makes the familiar path feel alien and new to me as well. 

My paddle moves more rapidly through the thinned water, an unexpected sensation. I wander between interest and suspicion. Things I have come to expect are subtly changed. I have been afraid of newness lately. I can’t adjust to the sudden shifts--the crackling as your mood changed has left me on-edge, and even the smallest variations seem to throw me these days, sending my gut spiraling.

But no, I’m thinking of you again. I stare down into the water, letting my mind seep out and spill over the mottled and stained pink plastic edge of the kayak. 

It flees into the coolness. My thoughts dip down into the swaying weeds, sinking, swallowed up under the sky’s brilliant reflection as the surface stills and seals them under the water.