I've been along this stretch of shore countless times. I've silently watched a thousand cloud veiled sunrises and sang songs to the moon as it disappeared behind the bluff, blood red. I've listened to the waves crash in one night only to be like glass the next morning. You never know what mood the Taking Lake will be in, morning to morning or night to night.
She's always in motion but you'd never know it half the time. Pay no attention to splashes and waves, the current just past your vision is what you need to be concerned about. It takes things, moves things, puts everything in it's final resting spot.
Each stone on this expanse looks just like those around it. Cold and oblivious to the others, it thinks it's on the way to someplace grand. When I pick up one, I can't help but wonder where it came from. I think about how big it used to be. How long till it's crushed to a grain of sand. I wonder when it finally lost it's edge. Side-arm skip it as hard as I can, offsetting it's arrival to wherever the hell it's supposed to be by another 100 years.
Stare into her for long enough and the Taking Lake will start staring back. She may taunt you to try to upset the natural order of things, to take a few steps in and reclaim that dream you threw away a few years ago. The one fossilizing at the bottom in the dark. She'll invite you to pitch a penny and make a wish only to spit out a green hunk of worthless, unrecognizable copper long after you're gone, the wish still thumb-printed into Abe's face under rust.
Every bottle with a message that washes up has writing inside that you recognize as your own.You may get the idea to speed things along, seems the easiest way to go about it would be to get in and let go, just sorta go limp and hope you're lucky as that penny. Fighting it only makes it worse...but isn't that what you do? Seems the best advice would be to let go and let the current take you where it will. You may end up someplace wonderful. Or maybe on the banks of Hell.
Every bottle with a message that washes up has writing inside that you recognize as your own.You may get the idea to speed things along, seems the easiest way to go about it would be to get in and let go, just sorta go limp and hope you're lucky as that penny. Fighting it only makes it worse...but isn't that what you do? Seems the best advice would be to let go and let the current take you where it will. You may end up someplace wonderful. Or maybe on the banks of Hell.
Legend has it that she never gives up her dead but for everything the Taking Lake steals, sometimes it gives something back. Each rusted over penny has wish on it, most of which end up as some kid's trophy from a day at the beach.
