Originally published in Prime Number Magazine, Issue 199
There were places we could go that early summer, at the height of the drought, that had been invisible to us earlier and were inaccessible to us later.
The lake’s shorelines, stalked by fishermen and long-legged water birds, cinched in tighter as the days grew hot. Dry canal beds led to tunnels and secret portals we climbed through in evenings, when the sun sank towards shadow. Impromptu channels ran through uncovered sand bars, turning to trickles before giving up in pre-solstice haze.
In the bottomland, at the end of our property, a whole meadow was revealed where a small wetland once existed. We tentatively climbed down the narrow incline to reach it, testing bare feet on new ground, together standing where it should be impossible. You laughed as I ran and sank through soft-cracked soil floating under a carpet of cowlicked spikerush, lush and green in the golden light. In another temporary spot at the bottom of the lake, we tempted invisible alligators, real and restless in their evaporating home – caution signs be damned.
In all the secret places exposed, we carefully stepped around what we would not say. I collected magical treasures – coquina rocks made of shells, mollusk husks in the shape of lavender butterflies – lying like words out of place on the freshly disclosed shore. You kept talking and talking and talking, asking questions I answered in syllables or with clever comments. I ignored – did not see – captivated looks while you diverted compliments with the determination of watery fingers channeling across sand.
Then one day you went back home.
Would you believe the day you left it started to rain? Oceans, torrents, hundred year floods. Meadow turned back to pond, erasing all traces we were there. Drops fell from palmetto fronds all day, like tears from lashes. Alligators glided out of antediluvian hiding places. The portal closed, too busy guzzling gallons of storm water to tempt travelers.
And I started writing. Deluges of words: crystal drops, swamp water, clear mountain springs, rivers clogged with red silted snowmelt. No discrimination. Everything came out.
I wanted to send them to you. But I didn’t know your address.
Words and photo © Jaime Greenberg, 2021
