Surreal

The soft babbling of the creek as it ran over the rocks painted with chocolate brown mud echoed quietly through the rustling, jade green leaves on the tall sycamore trees. Deer nibbled on thorny bushes, a frog rested on a bed of moss growing over a fallen tree’s rotting bark, and a girl with frizzy red hair and a thick mask of freckles on the bridge of her nose sat on the bank. Her feet dangled over the cold, rippling waters. Humming a soft tune to herself, she braced herself, stood up into the creek, and began to wade down it, feeling all powerful as little ripples were left in her wake.

Her mind was numb with shock, the tune not being recognized in her ears. Memories were like broken records, repeating the same scene over and over in her head, never moving on to another song. Stuck. She was stuck.

Alone and stuck, she though with a grim sigh.

Not even a foggy morning by the lake could cheer her up now. The silvery lavender sky would seem plain. Glimmering crystals on the water would seem as fascinating as the plastic rhinestones on her t-shirt, and as she stepped out of the creek and walked through a space between the trees, time stopped so suddenly she could hardly breathe.

It was Saturday, April seventeenth. Her best friend, her almost sister, the only one who always stood by her, was gone. Left. Moved to the sunshine state. Her head began to whirl, and she instantly collapsed on the beach of the lake. No tears fell. No sobs escaped her lips. No, her sadness touched the point beyond tears. There were simply none to release.

Another round of memories flooded her thoughts. She was drowning in them, choking and gasping for breath. Every time she breathed, her lungs would fill with the waters of her past. An earsplitting scream rang across the lake. No one would here her mangled and destroyed cries.

Why was she leaving? What had she done that had been so horrible to make her want to leave? She knew her friend’s family was tense and irritable, but why would she leave to live her father after all of their promises? What about getting their licenses together? What about spending time by this very lake, twiddling the mud between their toes? What about sitting in her bedroom with a bowl of movie butter popcorn and flipping through yearbooks? The moments were already fading into the farthest back corner of her mind. It was a dream. It was not real, could not be real. She couldn’t be gone.

But she was.

And life would never be the same.