Lakeside Ceremony

I sip from my mug, the hot coffee hitting my tongue, satisfying my taste buds thoroughly, and sending a jolt of attention through my body from the heat. The sun shone into my porch as I tried to frantically cool my mouth from the scalding liquid, the sunbeams lighting up my entire back yard with their white light, as they did every morning since I've moved here twenty years ago.

Sipping from a cup full of cold milk, I sit comfortably in my wooden rocking chair, watching the boats of the fishermen wade motionless in the lake, with which I have a perfect view of. Testing my coffee again, I couldn't help but thank my grandfather for having such good tastes in location, since he's the one that built and left me this house after his passing all those years ago.

My coffee was cool enough to sip from now, thankfully, as this is the time I need to be awake. The daily ceremony has almost begun. You could say that this is the other thing I need to wake up in the morning, because it happens every day, and it always finds a new way to surprise me. It started about 4 years back, and it doesn't show any signs of stopping soon.

Y'see, the dawn of every morning, a group of kids will walk over the hill to the east, the same two boys always carrying a small canoe, with another boy dressed in black following them. After that, everything's different from day to day, because behind that boy is a group of different - always different - girls, dressed in their Sunday best, following single-file very solemnly, their heads hung low.

They go down to the shore of the lake, right in front of my house, where the bay is shaded by the old Weeping Willow tree, it's leaves showering the group with confetti in the fall months. The two boys set the boat down into the water and step off to either side, letting the boy dressed in all black take over. He stands in front of the boat, reading out of a leather-bound bible The Lord's Prayer, obviously his father's copy from the wear of the material, and bows his head in a moment of silence, the others following suit.

As the group begins to talk amongst themselves again, the boy goes out into the crowd of girls and picks one. It's usually random, but it seems that if there's one he fancies, he'll usually pick her, while being a bit more theatrical. He takes her hand and leads her gently into the body of the boat, laying her down and laying a pink veil over her eyes. The girls all start walking by the body, dropping different kinds of flowers onto her, one by one.

He says some final words about her, usually sparse if it was just a random girl, but it becomes very flattering if he likes her, everyone bows their heads one final time as the two boys from before push the girl out to sea, letting the calm body drift out into the resting waters without any sort of tether to get her back.

This is where the ceremony stops for me, because it's at this point that the group walks off, away from my view. Though I hear about what happens next when I go to town, in gossip between friends. They make their way to the other side of the lake, where they manage to get the girl out of the boat some way, reuniting with the chosen girl with hugs, and kisses between friends.

The kids call it fun. The teenagers call it romantic. The adults call it childish. The elderly call it disrespectful. I call it adorable.

They've seen what their parents do to honor their passed on members of their family or friends, and made it so innocent. They must've gotten the idea for a lakeside burial in their books, or the TV, because that practice is very outdated, but they've managed to make it their own, and they've done a good job.

All of them, or at least the boys, have seen how lavishly people talk about the deceased, and wanted to make it just a bit easier for people to talk about each other like that while both are still in the realm of the living, and from what I hear the children talking about as I pass them in the town street, I'd say they're doing a good job of that too.

My coffee mug is empty, so I'm done watching for the day, as is my part of the ceremony anyway. Since it's all done now, I can continue on with my day, and my terribly busy schedule of sitting on my porch all day, watching boats row by, families playing at the bay on the other side, and watching the colors of the sun make an impression on my lawn. Can't wait for tomorrow's group though, I wonder if they'll ever bring along any other boys...