Crossing Styx

There’s a lake not far from home. It’s out of town and beyond the woods, but a half-hour drive will take you there. It’s a quiet place, because no one wants to go there now. David drowned there, years ago, and his body was never found.

A lone wooden pier is the only reminder that this place was ever tainted by what we call civilisation. It leads from the sandy shallows some way into the lake’s depths and once it was a beloved haunt of fishermen, but now the people and the boats are gone.

It is always peaceful at the lake. I don’t think it ever storms there anymore. There’s a serenity over the water that soothes even the weariest soul, brings peace to the most troubled mind... but I’m the only soul to see.

The townspeople say the lake is haunted. They say that David lingers here and plagues the living. I’ve heard them say he tempts you, teases you, taunts you, until you yield to temptation and follow him to the bottom of the lake- until you share his fate, and drown.

I’ve never seen David here, and I spent many days looking. All that is here is the quiet water, and the gentle wind, and the cry of an occasional lost seagull come too far upstream. Sometimes, as dusk comes to the lake, I think that I see flowers on the surface- thousands of little lilies floating on the water, drifting slowly to the falls into the river. Then when night falls there are lights; tiny flames dancing just above the waves are reflected until it seems that the lake is a giant mirror showing dancing stars.

To some these things seem eerie, but to me, they are things of otherworldly beauty. They are glimpses into a different place, fragments of the afterlife. They are small pieces of Heaven, but never quite tangible- always just out of reach.

Perhaps David saw them, the night he drowned. He was determined to swim, and nothing I said to him called him to reason. He did not care that it was cold, or that it was a stormy night, or that the currents were too strong. Even when I told him he did not need to prove himself to me, he would not sway.

He took his coat off and said he was a better swimmer. I laughed at him, and told him he was being ridiculous. He glared at me and told me that he’d prove me wrong. I can still see him, standing there with his wounded pride, taking off his sweater angrily. He refused to be bested by a girl, even if he would never admit that to anyone.

I knew I was supposed to feel anxious, but even in the gale of that night I could not get worried. I calmly pointed out once more that this weather was enough to kill anyone, regardless of how well they could swim. He would not listen. He turned his back on me and shed what clothes he still had on.

I latched on to his arm and told him to stop being so silly. He shrugged me off, telling me that he could not help it. I had laughed at him, had I not? Was he not already silly? Did it matter then, that he would swim? I had never before seen such determination in anyone’s eyes, and I know that I will never see it again. David would prove me wrong, or die trying, and even if I begged him it would not persuade him to stay.

I was frightened then, and frantically tried to subdue the onset of panic. If I could stay calm and reasonable, I knew that I could make him see reason too. If I could only keep talking to him, keep him out of the water. If I could only keep him busy long enough for his anger to cool.

I’ll come back with something from the other side.

He cut me off in the middle of a sentence and dove into the water. He disappeared beneath the waves for a few seconds and I found myself holding my breath until he resurfaced some distance away. I simply stood there on the pier in abject terror, unable to move. I could only watch as he fought his way forward, further and further away from me.

I started to feel that I was dreaming, that this had to be some sort of nightmare. I could not believe that it was really happening. David wasn’t this crazy. No one could swim that far in a storm like this. My nerves calmed a little more with every time I repeated the little mantra to myself. This is not happening. This is a dream. This is not real.

The scream was barely audible over the howling wind and the driving rain. David was no longer progressing. He was struggling to keep his head out of the water, and in the eternal seconds that followed I saw him disappearing beneath the waves several times. He called out to me as he reappeared, and I woke from my shocked state at last.

I shrieked. It was all I could do as fear seized me, and as David disappeared again I called out his name. The next time I saw him, I could have sworn he called out my name. With resolve that can only be found in those far beyond the edge of reason, I started taking off my own clothes and I leaped in after him. I did not feel the stinging cold of the water, or the pull of the undercurrents. I only felt a desperate need to make it to David, to pull him out of the water and save him.

He disappeared beneath the waves one last time long before I could reach him, and I could feel fatigue taking hold of me even as I drew nearer to where David should be. My legs were heavy and my arms were tired, and my lungs felt as if they were being assaulted by thousands of tiny daggers all at once. I closed my eyes for a moment, and everything went dark.

The lake was calm when I woke up. The sun was just rising over the mountains on the far shore, and there was no sound but the quiet sloshing of the waves. I lay in the sand for a while, trying to remember what had happened. Somewhere deep down I knew that David was gone, but my mind would not let the thought settle. It drifted this way and that as I plodded through the sand, looking for a trace of him.

Nothing was ever found. Even the clothes he had shed had been swept away by wind and water. The pier was empty and the lake was still, and it has remained that way ever since. I have wandered through the woods, along the shores of the lake, and through the empty streets of town looking for a sign, but never saw him again.

To the lake I always return, to sit on the pier and stare out over the water’s surface and contemplate. I will sit there throughout the days, and must remain there every night. I may stray this way or that, but to the lake I must return, to wait for David on the pier. One day I know I’ll find him there, ready to make the final journey together.

We are restless souls, wandering a desolation. We are lost. I know David must be by the lake looking for me, waiting for me to join him. We cannot make the crossing alone. So I sit on the pier and I wait for him, with my feet dangling in the water and my shoes standing beside me. In my right hand I hold his ring, in my left, the pennies for the ferryman.

~*~

Word count: 1327.