Drowning a Ghost

Drowning a Ghost

         It all started out innocently enough. I really had no idea things would turn out the way they did. If I had, I never would have done what I did. But I should have known, I mean, shouldn't I have known?

         I looked out over the smooth moon-lit ripples of the lake. It was so quiet, so ethereal when just moments before the surface had churned with gasps and frantic splashing and weak strangled cries for help had disturbed the quietness of the night.

         I had thrashed so violently in my panic and all the energy had been wasted effort. There was no one around to hear it. No one was there to respond. I had done it to myself, yet it wasn't at all what I had wanted. Why did I do it?

         Slowly, I lay my head on my knees and hugged my bent legs close to my body. I tried to think, to remember why I entered the water. Did I know what was going to happen? Had I planned it? Had I wanted to drown?

         I lifted my tear streaked cheeks and looked again at the low hanging moon. "I wish I could remember."

         Again, I looked at the surface of the quiet lake. There was something white bobbing out in the distance; I knew it was me; yet, I could feel myself sitting on the rocky shore shivering. So maybe, it really wasn't me.

         I remember the water was so cold, it almost hurt when I walked into it. The iciness took my breath away and I remembered gasping in the summer night air from the shock of that coldness rising with each step which engulfed me entirely. The rocks bruised and cut into my bare feet until I got into deep enough water, which allowed me to float. By that time, it took some effort to control my shivering. Rational thoughts were dulled by the depth sadness from which I sought the solitude of the isolated mountain lake.

         Yes, I remember now. I had been crying and feeling so alone and insignificant sitting on the large granite boulder at the lake's edge. Someone had died; I can't seem to remember just who; though, it was someone close to my heart and I was terribly sad.The physical pain of my grief rested achingly within my chest so that each breath became an endured torture. But, that doesn't matter now, does it?

         As I started to swim, the water sapped all my strength. Soon, I couldn't stay afloat. Somehow, I'd drifted into deep waters, or had I actually swam? Had I wanted to die then? Had I done this to myself on purpose? It is hard to remember what my living thoughts were during those moments. The melancholia of my spirit over powered all thought.

         I've never been a good swimmer, yet I've never been afraid of the water. Interesting that when it was too late I would change my mind. Yes, that is what happened. I was so weak and exhausted, so when I first sank below the surface, I welcomed the coldness, but I held my breath. I was suddenly afraid it would hurt and something within me couldn't accept the watery grave I sought. I remember cursing my stupidity and kicking my way back to the surface.

         God! I was so cold and my lungs felt as if they would burst before I finally broke through the surface and into the summer night air. I desperately swam upward toward the moonlight and welcomed the air exchanged in those first gasps.

         My teeth chattered and I shivered violently and some distant part of my brain started running down the symptoms of hypothermia. Some place in all this, I felt myself start to panic, but I didn't really believe I was in any real danger. I started swimming slowly. I'm not sure what you would call the stroke, not quite a dog paddle but not a breast stroke, either. Then I wished I had swim fins, my legs and arms felt like lead weights and the shore looked so far away. Too far away.

         Oh God! What was I doing out there! How stupid could I be?

         I couldn't keep my head above the water and I choked. The pain was an eternity of icy burning and strangling and then everything went black.


         Everything is quiet, now. All I can hear is the lapping of the waves on the rocky shore. I don't feel cold anymore, I'm not shivering, and I really don't feel, well, anything. No, that isn't quite true. I still feel a sadness like the dull persistent ache of an infected tooth. The sadness weighs heavily in my breast and I know this is how I will feel forever, now. I am not alive to live passed this feeling of gloom. I've been very stupid. I just wanted the pain of my sadness to stop and to leave me. All I ended up doing was to connect this sorrow to my soul. This is all I will feel; my eternity of sadness.

         I stand and I am stepping into the water. I cannot feel its icy coldness. The rocks don't hurt my feet this time. I want the sadness to end. Maybe, if I again swim out into the water, the sadness will drown there. It must go away. I cannot stand this pain. It hurts too much and I need it to stop.

         As I swim, I am drawn toward the whiteness breaking the surface of the moon-lit lake. It is my body and I swim toward it.

         NO! Don't touch it!

         My mind screams this urgency, yet, I do touch it. That touch feels familiar, yet I cannot really feel my body; not with touch as I remember it, anyway. I feel it as a shock of painful cold melancholia.

         Oh no, it is rolling, don't look at it. You can't look at it.

         But I do. The eyes are open and lifeless; sweet glistening dark orbs reflecting the full moon above the lake. I feel myself falling into those unseeing lifeless orbs.

         Now, I am floating on my back and looking at the moon. So beautiful. So peaceful, but now it's blurring. What's happening? A veil has fallen over my vision. I watch the brightness as it fades in a growing distance, as darkness engulfs me. But of course, the body is sinking in the icy coldness of the lake. I remember reading somewhere that the body would find an equilibrium in the icy layers of deep waters and eventually decompose there. Funny, that not until now do I remember reading that.

         However, no one ever said it would be so lonely and so dark. This terrible sorrow follows me.

         Oh God, what have I done? Will I never escape this painful sadness?

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