Back Then

• Heidi Huggett, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2019

Haunting clouds stalk its prey. Sun shrinking into the horizon, its effervescent light dying as darkness strips the land of its warmth leaving a naked cold in its wake. Mimicking lake laughs at the sky copying its vibrance until it too is caught by darkness.
Drifting pier creating gripping wanderlust, stomach clenching nostalgia. Each creaking wooden plank striking a chord of memory hidden deep in my soul. This was my childhood. A calm serenity falls over the landscape lulling the sky to sleep as the mural of flowers falls into an abyss of darkness luring the mirroring lake to follow. Haunting clouds settle, leaving a glittering array of diamonds to play lullabies in the sky. But everything was different back then.
Back then, the now tranquil lake rippled with laughter and moved with the wind. Rambunctious young bodies were welcomed by the water and created a song of harmony and happiness. Infinite sky filled the land with its warmth, its abundance of blue stretching across the horizon. Back then the clouds hid in fear of the sun, afraid of being burnt by its powerful rays.
One chord of memory was struck the hardest. The memory of him, all the childhood games and the everlasting bond we shared up until the day everything turned into a nightmare and he was swallowed by the lake forever entangled in its vines. That was the day the song of harmony and happiness reached a crescendo of tears and violent last counts of dissonance played on forever creating an eternity of misery hidden in the wooden planks of the creaky pier.
Back then I had never realised the dangers that lurked, the naivety of a young mind protected by angels in the forms of parents and friends. The dynamic of blue above created games of fun only for the sun to disappear and destruction to take over. I remembered the shade of darkness that came when he left, I remembered the rain that fell when tears fell, the angelic structure of my parents crumbling before my eyes taking the little of childlike wonder left within me when I realised that the lake played an evil game and would never give him back.
Before that day, I never parted from him and he never parted from me. We were one in the same and when he ascended into the above half of me followed. My own body ripped in two, one half caught in the vines reaching out to him and the other left as an empty shell of despair possessed by demons.
But.
That was back then.
Now all that was left of my soul was reflected by what was in front of me. Haunting clouds stalking, sun sinking as darkness replaces. The pier still provoked memories. The lake was the only thing to change. Now instead of laughing at the sky, it laughed at me reminding me of what lurked beneath its seemingly serene waters.