by Karyn Huntting Peters
Down so, so far it shimmered and waved. The copper drain was never a circle at all. It would never be one. It would never be anything but a shape-shifting metal dreamplate swimming down in the turquoise.
What things to ponder. How could I know what shape the dreamplate really was? If I assumed a circle, did that make it so? Look up, look up! The bamboo trees groved together along the far end of the pool, all the way to the fence. The sky so blue. Cumulous clouds were white. Was there a heaven like people said there was? Was it above the clouds?
My hands clutched the rough concrete, held it tightly. Don't fall, they say. Don't fall in. You'll drown. Kicking your feet in the water is okay, though. If you stopped kicking for a few minutes, the water slowed to a wave tank. All the cumulous clouds were there, the blue, and maybe a reflection of a maybe heaven? It was all transparent. Less real than the shape-shifting dreamplate, and it wouldn't stay still. It was all moving. Look up. Look down. Close your eyes. Mmm. Yes, maybe that's it.
It's dizzying. I have some ideas now. I can see … wait! Falling, cold, turning, screaming. Open your eyes. Now. This is reality. See it, dammit! This is it! The water no longer moved. The dreamplate was a perfect circle, shiny copper. Everything placid until this moment-bamboo, sky, cumulous, concrete, house, fence-now shimmered and moved. Nothing was solid anymore. All of it, a grand illusion! A façade! Laugh if you can, fools! It's not solid!
But nothing came out of my open mouth. I knew now that tears were just like warm water, that they were only natural and lost in the heart of it all. In reality. The copper was smooth. I could feel it with my fingers. I cried. I asked why, but I knew not to whom I posed my question.
Answers came to questions not asked. I sat for the first time in some Antarctic movie theater to watch a film of strange progression. Pictures, and pictures of answers. But the plot was tragic, senseless. It was all wrong, I screamed in silence. All wrong!
But nobody was listening. There was pressure, so much pressure. So sad to have to go, now that I knew the secret of cotton ball clouds and their reflections. Say goodbye to your self, say it in silence. Nobody else can year you. Or maybe everyone can. Yes. I felt a bit of a smile.
The answers are so tragic and simple. Everyone. One. Yes, that's it. It just didn't matter. Those who understood the secrets of the tragic answers would hear me even if I never uttered the words. Goodbye. Goodbye. I'm not afraid anymore.
The voices were far away and growing louder. And then there was the pain. Choking, gasping, a stabbing pain in my chest. They were talking to me. Open your eyes, can you hear me, breathe, oh God please breathe….
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