Snippet: On the Dock
I am here, as promised. The morning is cold, the fog thick. In a few hours - maybe in only minutes - the sun will burn through and the lake will appear peaceful and inviting. But under the morning mist the water is a solid blackness. A thick, greedy surface that a body could surely not escape. The ripples tell me of your approach. I hold my breath, lest you steal it. We made the bargain but I will only pay the bare minimum. As I already fear you will not hold to the spirit of our contract, only the literal terms. You undulate beneath the surface, moving like a snake under bed sheets. The tension of the water does not break. I see only the pale gray of your indistinguishable form. The incomplete image, sinking into blackness. In sunlight, this water would only cover to my neck. Here, in this pre-dawn moment of bargains, I know the depths are fathomless. That the whole lake teems with your limbs, your eyes, your gaping maw. The spaces between filled with the pale dead flesh of other bargains. Other deals. That I will make my payment to you, add my pale skin to your legion. And in return receive the darkness, the depths. The silence of this time before the sun chases away the fog. Author's note: These snippets are unedited free-writing exercises that I use as a way to shift my brain into a creative state. I use Lynda Barry's What It Is YouTube timed exercises (usually 9 minutes worth of writing) for these. They are handwritten in a composition notebook, and then typed up here. As I transcribe them, I do tiny grammar and spelling checks, but the overall "clarity" (if you can call it that) of the exercise is left as-is.