The Lake

The Lake..... lies… still, a glistening sheet of tin foil, shimmering in a cold-eyed wind. At night the lake... lies… still; a coffin with lid screwed light-tight. On occasion, the moon trickles light, lightly across the lake's pitch-black back; the knack of making the coffin lid crack! Today, I challenge myself to touch-dive the lake’s chilling depths, halfway down I halt, a dark vault, weakens my errant confidence. Despite puppet legs and handcuffed arms I spin frantically to reach a detached surface, bursting out like some skittish, Scottish salmon only to be held between the two supremos; illuminated sky and darksome water. Tonight, the lake grips my bedroom window and I watch as watery, inky tentacles claw and talon at an unsettled shoreline. Later, I wait for sleep to possess me, sensing surrounding hills clinging closely while rain falls like pellets of iron. So I drift…listening to the lake whispering dangerous, whispering treacherous secrets until nature’s seesaw; night tilts into daylight. Ian Souter