secrets umwelt

Sophie Lin, United States

I drift in a lake choked with water lilies. The deep waves pull down prematurely-fallen

leaves and fallen birds, but it only goes up to my knees. I stand tall, trying to listen.

Sparkling dragonflies flutter by in the hot evening, their eyes gossamers that capture the

glitter of the missing sun. A distant humming from shiny decaying cicadas, those ancient secrets

sprawled all vulnerable in the wild. The lake is choked with weeds and flowers, among other

things. Of uncertainty, of astonishment, of yearning, of any other abstract term you can think of

into a metaphor, sure. But we know in the end it is just a lake.

The slight frigidity clings to my skin, a thin film of protection against the often sweltering

weather. And, without precedent, Summer shifts her mood, all whimsy and wonder like the

wandering mind of a child. Brushing against the blank sky today are thin paint strokes of cloud, a

blush of lavender somewhere in the distance.

To be honest, I am not sure what I’m attempting to illustrate here. Of childhood, of

memories, of regret? Perhaps, or it could just be a warping of reality because we always seek to

comprehend what we forever cannot.

It’s almost beautiful.

At moments like these, I wonder about the mythical creatures that inhabit this world’s

every corner. Scaled serpents with beating wings and a mouth full of hot flame, hunched

saber-toothed dogs that suck on the farmer’s goats. Most of all, however, I think about that

ever-so-elusive living fossil, a remnant of the times when reptilian creatures soared the skies,

those tall kings in heaven, and mammals, small and insignificant, scoured the earth for scraps. A

supposed creature with a tail thudding on the ground of an ocean floor, rhythm in sync with the

utmost primal whisperings of the world. Wise and patient. Open-minded and peaceful. Until

blazing bullets rain across the sky and that precious ocean shrinks to a lake. Oh, that odd miracle,

prehistoric anomaly — I imagine that this is the perfect place for a dream to appear. The thick

milkweed soaked in a vanilla scent, the humming of aqua-borne insects that boast plasticky

wings and hearts of lead, the half-lit air and fireflies like constellations floating about. I wish for

a monster to arrive, so I will lay down in this lake, pretend to sleep until I dream.

I know that it’s all nonsense. Though I speak, I am not sure what I want to convey. How

do I get better? I feel so sick to my stomach, and I only feel fresh in the dead, of the night and

other things. I am not the one drifting away, I have realized some summers ago, but it is others

who drift away from me. They see what they like, and follow it, snatch it, get carried up in its net

to the sleepy heavens over yonder. I don’t understand. Is it so wrong to stay locked in the ground,

an intimate kiss ever deepening with what was always there? I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

I’ll never understand. I can’t believe that it’s night already, still can’t bring myself to a

more permanent demise. Is it the warm air that almost lulls me to sleep, broken by the startling

white moon — oh how white and untainted it is — or the wailing darkness dotted by unearthly

ignis fatuus? Pale pink water lilies that brush against my feet as I ford the still waters? What little

moments of joy have I missed out on? How many are left? The cicadas with soft burnished

shells, they taunt me. Life is but a blinking of the eye, the flutter of a hand...

My imagination weathers away ever so sluggishly that wading here so shallow is painful.

I cannot think anymore, so I wonder in faraway languages and idyllic vacation spots. In friends

who have left one quiet summer day, and in hot-burning love gone unkindled for who knows

how long. But most of all, even though it is a foreign concept that I will never come to

understand, I wonder in Loch Ness, Irish-murky wetlands. Studded tail lazily sliding across the

wet mud, that enormous body blocking out what little light filters through the crowded frond, its

very existence a contradiction of some old adage about falling apart. I can almost see it, as I

stand tall here, trying to listen. Floors upon floors, water lilies all the way down.

Mm. It’s unfortunate. I lose sleep over the most trifling matters, over the choice of a

single word in a poem, the color of a flower dreamt in the night before. I just want to understand.

Sink deeper into this wretched lake, swim with water lilies, grab hold of your jugular.

Avast, everything spirals to chaos! Melatonin-laden poison, language that exists just to

lure in thirsty eyes. I just can’t find the right words to describe the feelings that I hold so close to

my heart, its cadence diminuendoing into futile thought. There is not a single person left to hold

my hand.

Oh, won’t you say goodbye.

The sky is becoming brighter, and it is time to go away. No time to sleep, the damned

night’s already wasted. I lift myself in a ponderous thud, and it is time to leave.. As I watch the

sun burn itself, waste away its wick, I want to join them, I want to breathe star gas, I—

Can't wait to go home.

In sync with the pulsing of fireflies’ light, fading fading fading is the cadence of my

studded tail, half-sunk in the mud. Tainted water lily.

Sophie Lin is a student at Neuqua Valley High School. Her works are published in her school’s award-winning literary magazine The Essence and are commended by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In her free time, she likes to drink boba tea and pretend to know what she is doing when programming.