The Lake is Wrinkled

The wind is thick and humid, wrestling the taut wiregrass. It irritates my legs. The skin on the bottom of my feet withers in the liquid dirt. A deep purple is stretching across the horizon. I am thinking about the creases that fold the skin under your eyebrow, the wrinkles that scale your profile, depressing the corners of your mouth, softening your jawline. 

    I am claustrophobic in the vast valley. The night sky is creeping towards me and I feel the muscles in my chest contract, protesting the day’s end. I don’t want this day to end.

    This place feels foreign, although I parked the van in the same spot; next to the large, flat rock enveloped in moss. Back then, you’d pat the ute’s wheel as it groaned to a halt, and you’d pull up there, always next to the mossy rock. Before we entered the valley, I’d shuffle down from the passenger seat, climb up the stone, and sprawl my little body along its smooth surface. I’d rejoice in the moist growth soothing my palms, trace the patterns of fluff and splotches of darker green, and eventually, you’d have to say, no, no, Elizabeth. Don’t eat that. But I would try, anyway, so you’d scoop me away in your big, worldly arms, hold me to your chest. I would never complain because your cocoon was just as nourishing – my cheek pressed against your lightweight linen, my legs packed loose in your bare arms.

    For a moment, I consider trailing through the valley. Uprooting wet dirt with each step, fighting the browned wiregrass. I imagine reaching the rocky path to the lake, where the paperbark grows. I could watch the water’s reflection recede as the sun gives way. And then I think about what you said today. Under the flickering LED light in your Surry Hills apartment, nursing a milky earl grey. There’s no point in bitterness. 

    As if in protest, I let my feet sink farther, fastened in the mud. 

    I don’t believe there is anywhere else to look for answers. I won’t find them beneath a flickering LED light.

    I take a few steps forward. And then I stomp – clumsy, like how children do, with their bloated knees and swollen ankles. Mud splashes onto my calves, tepid on my skin.

    I remember marching in this very spot, where the dirt path gives way to overgrowth. The earth felt rich. I could feel its little treasures – the waters, minerals, vitamins – penetrate my pores and circle my body. I’d march around, trying to push all the dirt into my skin. Yes, you would say. Mud is the happiness potion. When we’d retreat for the day, I’d watch your profile in the sunset glow, and I always thought you looked younger. Valley magic, I reasoned. When we got home, I’d watch the magic leak out of you when you scowled, your neck tensed and crunched.

    You’d put me on your shoulders back then. My dirty feet would stain your linen. I thought I could see the whole world up there. The narrow, swordlike grass tips. Distant butterflies in their drunken flutter. The maze-like entry to the lake. Hair thinning at the top of your head, revealing pale, freckled skin. You’d only ever lift me like that when we were here. Valley magic – the valley made you youthful and strong. Loving. 

    I look towards the lake entrance. I am tall enough to see that, now. The sun’s final song spills an orange tint on the rocks. The surrounding paperbark cast deep shadows at the entrance clearway. My feet aren’t strong anymore; I don’t play barefoot or walk on hardened earth. I wear insoles and thick socks. If I go to the lake, the rocks will scrape my skin. Even if I made it, when I return, the mud will sear my wounds. My body isn’t built for the lake anymore.

    Summer, grade four, we raced to the lake. You wore hiking shoes, and I wore callouses. I won with grazed knees. Breathless, we collapsed by the shoreline. You poked your head over the water and I followed. There was no wind that day – the water was glasslike, but little ripples still pulled at the surface. They airbrushed your skin. Valley magic. We looked so alike in the water’s mirror – our long faces and hooded eyes. We could’ve been siblings. I pulled away from our reflection and looked towards you: grey hair, dripping sweat. I laughed and you quipped back – Don’t look away! This water makes me look like I’m your brother. Maybe you would’ve preferred it that way.

    That day I wondered aloud: how does the water move with no wind? We theorised that the ripples are cyclical; the wind creates the ripples and the ripples sustain themselves. I told my teacher that week: I have a scientific discovery! She said it didn’t work like that, but I believed our version, anyway.

    The wind in the valley has let up. Every so often, a breeze meanders past, barely tickling the grass. I wonder how big the water ripples are.

    I walk towards the lake entrance, and then stop again. I am unsure if I want to see my lone reflection. I want to preserve the soles of my feet.

    I told you to come today. I thought we might poke our heads over the shoreline. I’d look ten again, you’d look twenty, or perhaps forty, now. I told you it was the least you could do. I had lifted the lid on our rift. It was time for you to revert back now. Can’t you see? I said. There was never any magic. We just needed a space big enough to fit our love.

    There’s no point in bitterness.

    I told you the point of bitterness is to work out what is right.

    I fall to the ground and plunge my hands into the dirt. I put my weight into my arms until I’m up to my elbow in mud, and I heave the earth upwards. It strains my triceps and something in me likes the violence of it. When the dirt sputters back to the ground it sounds like it is protesting, and I hit the mud again with my open palm. Then I grab the bottom of my shirt and knead the dirt in. I pull it so hard the fabric digs into my shoulders. I think about how we’d be here, and I’d nag your linen with filthy fingers. What did that feel like for you? Perhaps I missed the moment you clenched your jaw or averted your eyes. Or maybe you really never minded. Then I remember at home, I’d pull your shirt with clean hands, and you’d say I’m busy.

   My head feels hot. Like today, in Surry Hills, when I tried to collapse. I do that when I want to turn back time. I tell myself I feel faint. I recite it like a mantra until my body begins to believe it. I tried harder than ever today. My face flushed and my knees convulsed. I could practically see it. I’d wake to a shaky light, and you’d only show concern in your deepened wrinkles, cascading your profile like rhizomes. Later, once you’d asked if I was okay to drive, I’d leave, and we’d pretend nothing ever happened. 

    Instead, I am having a tantrum and oozing mud and you’re not here. I look to the dark sky, and I wonder if some questions are unanswerable. Like why you stopped wearing linen shirts. I think of earlier today. Your arthritic, inflated fingers cradled your mug with such grace, as if the cup were as light as paper, as if your hands would glide through mud. Earlier still, in the car mirror before I arrived, I plucked three grey hairs from my head. I can’t think of this as stupid, but it hardly feels logical.

    I get up and stomp through my hips to waive off snakes. My eyes strain in the darkness. When the overgrowth thins away, yielding to the gravel entry, I get on my hands and knees and crawl. I reach the rocks and the darkness thickens, the moon blanketed by paperbark. It’s five minutes to the lake, perhaps ten given the conditions. The rocks are jagged and sharp and I can’t ascertain their pattern. The stones shift beneath me. They chant violent songs, clattering amongst themselves. I smell traces of dirt and blood in the air. Something on my leg is stinging and I hope I’m going the right way. If I collapsed here, I’d wake to soft morning light leaking through leaves. Or razor-edged rocks gouging my back. The bitterness in me wants you to find me like that. The sweetness in me hopes I find you by the lakeside. I won the race this time, you’d say. As if your old bones would let you. Perhaps you’d do it just to feel young again.

    By the time I see moonlight bleeding onto the path, my muscles feel rusted, and I have another two hot stings on my leg. 

    I know I’m in the right place, because three trees ahead have been stumped. The one furthest from the lake kept growing, leaving the other two behind as it stretched to the sun. We never knew why. That one had an engraving on it – the initials L+B in a love heart. I always felt slightly disturbed by it, as if these strangers were intruding on a space that was ours alone. And still, I thought L+B were special. Their love kept that tree alive, I guessed. Once, when I was a little older, we passed the tree and you told me, when you get a partner, don’t get their name tattooed. Engrave it, like L and B. You never know what won’t last.

     The trees are still sliced clean. Closer up, I think they look beheaded. I’m unsteady on my feet as I get up. There is enough room to walk on the dirt next to the trees. They grow sparse as I limp towards the lake entrance. It is so close. I am thinking about the wrinkles that scale your profile. I wonder how the moonlight might wash your browbone in shadow. I am so close to the lake. 

     The path opens. 

    I am back on the other side of the valley. In the distance, I see my car parked next to the mossy rock.

    I look again to the sky. I think about how the stars are already dead before their light reaches us. What we see is a residue of their mortality. As if they are saying, I burnt so bright I left a cosmic scar. 

     The valley is alive in my rearview mirror as I drive home. I know I won’t come back here.