Maybe Ivan Marrinson knew something they didn’t, as he sat with his feet in front of him buried in the sand.
Victor’s orange campus fest t-shirt from 2006 and cut-off jean shorts were balled up in a pile next to him, a notebook, a pen, and empty orange pill bottles. Ben’s white t-shirt and black slacks were next to that. And next to that was Eli’s purse which was overflowing with random bullshit.
It was 90 degrees. They were melting: drips of sweat were coalescing into bigger drops until they formed salty tributaries that flooded the epidermic crevices of their bodies flowing down towards the earth’s core. DNA sizzled out of existence on the grains of hot sand. Some people might call it heat stroke.
Ben and Victor collapsed on the sand in two solid thuds, which formed craters, as they clutched the left side of their chests in horror. Pretending to die on a beach. A mother stared at Ben and Victor in their boxers (Ben’s: Cotton in the shade of grey; Victor’s: faded blue Buffalo Bills boxers, thigh high) and was trying to decide whether she should have a talk with her thirteen year old daughter about vaginal intercourse and the ramifications of unprotected sex, or if she should tell us to put an actual bathing suit on because it’s a public place, and there are children around. But they were already half submerged in the lapping waves, swimming towards Eli. Out of shouting distance. Her head was a hairy buoy bobbing in the waves of the lake.
Ivan Marrinson didn’t join them. He stayed on the shore, fully clothed in a brown band t-shirt and jeans nervously piling clumps of sand onto his exposed feet and patting the mounds flat with his palm. Distracting himself.
Ivan Marrinson does not swim in the lake. Ivan Marrinson has never swum in the lake, and doesn’t have any plans to do so in the near future. He told them it makes him uncomfortable: appendages disappearing in a green haze.
“You never know what’s next to you, or under you, or touching you, or tasting you. It just freaks me the fuck out.” he said passing around a joint the other night in his apartment.
And it’s not that unusual. People have been seeing strange figures in this lake ever since the 1600’s, when it was first explored. Large shadows under the waves. Bulbous bodies. Scales. Four flippers. Long serpentine heads and necks, which make the creatures look like large reptilian swans.
Some experts think they are plesiosaurs. Some experts think they are waves. Some experts think the creatures can use sonar. Some experts think plesiosaurs were not equipped with sonar. Some experts think the plesiosaurs were trapped in the lake after it lost its connection to the sea, then adapted to the various obstacles they encountered within their new environment, and are able to satiate themselves on the hordes of fish provided by the lake. Some experts think the extinction of plesiosaurs occurred during the end of the Cretaceous period, and no evidence exists to suggest that they survived.
Ivan Marrinson learned these facts ten years ago after moving here with his family from Oklahoma.
But maybe plesiosaurs were not the root cause of Ivan Marrinson’s lake phobia.
Some people chose not to swim in the lake because of phosphorus pollution.
Which could lead to algae blooms.
Which could lead to decomposing clumps of algae wrapping its limbs around a human body—a bunch a limp arms covered in mucous hugging/strangling the outer layer of skin.
Plus it smells really bad too.
Plus you never know when a thunder storm will show up and fuck up a good time.
Ben, Eli, and Victor swam past the kids carelessly wading along in their yellow duck inner tubes. Past the teenagers gathered in a crowd playing chicken. Past the people with swim caps. Past the married middle-aged couple in a kayak. They were treading water, unable to touch the bottom. And they had plans to go farther out to a wooden structure jutting out of the lake. It looked like an upside down ice cream cone floating on the surface. Rotting away. They decided that it was too far and too disgusting, after all three of them were molested by slimy leaves of seaweed.
After his feet were sufficiently buried, Ivan Marrinson picked up the notebook and pen, and began to doodle:
First, he drew a cat sitting on a toilet reading the newspaper. And in a thought bubble the cat is thinking, “Shit happens.”
Next, he drew the sun setting behind the mountains—but he fucked up the geometry of the sun, and couldn’t get the sky mirrored on the top of the lake to look right, so he scribbled aggressive black lines of ink over the image.
Then, he drew a pot leaf on fire screaming in agony.
Finally, he drew three objects with long necks and flat heads that were silhouetted against the super orange light of the setting sun.
Ivan Marrinson’s mouth filled with and oozed blue ink as he gazed at the three shadows in astonishment. He was chewing on the pen when his eyes discovered the black shapes, and his teeth bit that piece of plastic in half out of shock. Blue drops stained the sand in front of his feet as mothers bustled children away to mini vans, and old men in polo shirts shot photos with pocket-sized digital cameras.
Ivan Marrinson was concerned about the safety of Ben, Eli, and Victor.
He called out their names. No response.
Ivan Marrinson thought about calling the fire department, but realized there would never be enough time. Nor would they believe him.
Ivan Marrinson unearthed his feet from their tombs by standing up and moving his legs forwards towards the precipice of liquid water flooding land below sea level.
Ivan Marrinson ran out into the water in a panic. His legs were knee deep and sinking deeper, but his head was still above water. He is screaming. He is also nervous that he is embarrassing himself.
Ivan Marrinson notices Ben, Eli, and Victor walking up the other side of the beach, and sprints out of the lake, tripping on rocks.
Ivan Marrinson is out of breath and slumps over with his hands on his saturated thighs.
“CONGRADULATIONS IVAN! You’re not scared of the lake anymore.” Ben said as he patted him on the back.
“WAY TO GO IVAN! You’re so heroic. A true inspiration. A role model for youths who are scared of swimming in lakes.” Victor said clapping.
“Aw, Ivan you did it. I’m so proud of you. Growing up right before our eyes” Eli said staring at him with a sympathetic/unsympathetic expression.
“Hey…Assholes…Shut the…Fuck up.” Ivan said between breaths.
He finally regained his spindly structure by standing kind of upright with his shoulders hunched forward.
“Please tell me you saw those things in the water. Those three shadows with elongated necks and flat heads?”
“No.” Victor responded.
“Na.” Ben replied.
“I was focused on the shore and trying to breathe the whole time.” answered Eli.
Later that night, Ivan Marrinson ran his hands through his blonde locks of hair, which made them stick upwards.
No one believed him. The whole event was dismissed as a hoax. A hallucination.
Ivan Marrinson will see those three silhouettes every day until his death: A Phenomena of Reptilian Swans nesting behind his eyes, starting a family.
Ivan Marrinson will never swim in the lake again.
No comments:
Post a Comment