The Lake

Snow sweeps across the yard. It's not the kind that
lingers on your doorstep and collects into a big glob of wet mess.
It's the kind that disintegrates, each drop closer to
the earth. My mother is still eating. She likes to take her time,
peeling the skin off individual grapes. Chewing and counting until 10.
She says eating like this brings a person much more closer to being
civilized. My father has already gobbled up his food and has left the
table for the much more exciting world of World Wrestling
Entertainment.

I wonder if she knows that I'm only half-listening to her recount her
day gossiping with and consoling Aunt M. whose husband left to marry an
18-year-old girl who barely knows English? I think she knows, but she
enjoys it too much. The sound of her own voice. My eyes glaze and I
nod and say, Uh huh, or Oh, really, or feign, no! Why is she still
with him?

Sometimes, I am captured by that same voice, at times pleasing and
teasing, at times annoying and boring. Like the stories that erupt
once in a while. The fables. The cautionary tales. Like that of the
pristine lake. There was once a lake. While other lakes collected
leaves, sticks and bugs in its wavy hair, there was a lake, near the
top of the mountain, that always remained pristine. Nothings ever
touched the calmness of the lake. Not even the wind. My mother used to
tell us never to go near there. You'll be taken, she says. The Dragon
lives there and no one ever escapes. If he should find you pleasing,
you're gone. Like the girl whose parents made her wear enchanting
amulets to rid her of the Dragon who fell in love with her. Her neck,
wrists, ankles, bound by red copper jewelry. Once, in the dawn of the
morning, her lover called to her and she followed his voice, his
presence. She walked into the lake. Her mother awoke, realized the
daughter gone. They followed the daughter's distant voice.
Waist-deep in the lake, her father struggled to pull his daughter out
of the chilled water. She fought and cried. Her right arm extended.
Her fingers stretched out. Reaching out for her lover. A snake
swimming a couple of feet away from her. They saved her. They left
town. But he still followed her. My mother remembers seeing the
beautiful girl. Her sad eyes. The weight on her small body. The war
came. Whatever became of her?