Mirror Lake

By: Maria Persaud

I’m alone on a paddleboard with my feet in the water—smooth, cold water that ripples like liquid glass or folded silk. The sun stains the surface of the lake as it disappears, pulling the clear, blue sky away with it. Stars begin to appear in the dark space above me, like air holes being poked in the top of a jar. I’m an insect under the observation of the Universe. My fingers stiffen, my teeth chatter, and my spine is riddled with shivers. Surprisingly, my submerged feet are the warmest part of me.

The air is cold and still and clear, and it feels like breathing for the first time. The air smells like cedar and pine—like newly washed sheets that were hung outside to dry. The air smells like sunshine: warm and crisp; the air smells like home. The breeze sends chills up my neck, and it plays with my hair like a cat with a bird. The great blue herons pick through the muddy shallows for snails mostly, and their long legs are like those of a praying mantis. The ducks aren’t as graceful, but they’re friendly, and they swim over looking for food. The ducklings are the colors of bruised, overripe bananas, only fuzzier, and they’re curious; they peck at the edge of my paddleboard. Cream-colored flowers grow from the lily pads floating in the shallows. Each bloom has spoon-like petals, each perfectly formed, protecting a sliver of sunshine in its yellow center. Pine trees and log homes sit on the edges of the lake, and I hear bubbling laughter in the distance, and the odd snapping of branches every so often. But I don’t hear very much, only my own feet kicking in the water, the singing of waterfowl, and the continuous drone of crickets.

The sky has long dropped it’s powdered blue façade to reveal it’s true color: dark. Whether it’s indigo or navy or black doesn’t matter to me, and the lake turns into an ink well to mirror it. The stars provide no warmth or light, and without the usual smokescreen of the city over them, their domain feels incredibly big and impossibly close. Shooting stars pass overhead for hardly a second, and my heart jumps every time I see one. There’s no moon to offset the creeping darkness, and I decide that I am intruding in nature’s realm. An unsettling feeling pools in my stomach, telling me it’s time to leave.

As I depart, my paddle disturbs the water that feels and moves like silk, and my toes skim against slimy lake weeds that reach up from the bottom. I can hardly see just a couple of feet ahead of me. Darkness is a silent, unnerving, unending feeling, and wraps it’s cold tentacles around me, beckoning me to return to my bed, where the warmth and certainty of civilization awaits.