Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Charade (08/14/08)
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TITLE: Skimming Stones | Previous Challenge Entry
By Yvette R
08/21/08 -
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“I love you, you know,” you say carefully; curving another stone across the water.
For a moment it is as light as air, forgetful of itself, caught in the momentum of its freedom. We watch it skim, dance, delicately step across the liquid landscape…and then it’s gone: the weight of its soul making it falter; dragging it into watery oblivion.
“No, I don’t know,” I mutter back.
My heart is tied to that stone, and I watch it sink; feel it settle somewhere in the tangled weeds below. The water closes, the ripples spread, and our harsh lines soften for the first time in years. It is an illusion, I know, yet I am entranced.
A memory mists in, of you and me many years ago, our hearts dancing lightly as those skimming stones; full of love and joy and hope. Two young idealists who hadn’t yet felt the weight of their own humanity; their own complacency; their own guilt. Our laughter had echoed across the lake; our reflections warm and soft in its frozen mirror. Ten years and two seasons later, the lake has thawed, and we have frozen.
Your sigh breathes through the mist, and I wonder if you remember too. The pebbles in your hand grind lightly against each other, their smooth surfaces clinking like links in a broken chain.
“You said you’d forgiven me.”
Your voice is quiet, non-accusing, yet somewhere deep within me something volcanic and ugly rears its head; something that wants to tear and claw at you…
“I did,” I reply caustically.
The past tense is deliberate, scratching at the wounds I won’t let heal. I want to do battle; want to bloody this quiet spot with blame and guilt and loathing. But your silence is unnerving, bleeding my courage out, twisting me with fear. The world around us sounds unnaturally loud: the rattling water, the screaming eagle, the violent brush of a breeze through the trees.
'Fight me!' I want to scream. 'Yell at me!'
But you don’t listen to my desperate demands.
“I forgive you,” you murmur, and I can no longer breathe.
There is not enough air in this valley to expand my lungs, not enough air in my lungs to speak. My throat constricts, choking any words that want to form. I stare at our silent reflections, seeing only myself – my guilt, my shame, my loathing mirrored in you. It is not you I despise; not your weakness, your guilt, your infidelity…it is my own.
“I never forgave you,” I choke out. “I wanted revenge. I wanted to hurt you too…”
“I forgive you,” you say again, quieter, closer; and the façade splinters, shatters into the thousand tears I had refused to weep.
There can be no more masquerade of morality; no more feigned and false forgiveness; the stones with which I built those treacherous walls tumble humbly at your feet. With gentle hands, and quiet eyes, you pick them up; weigh them thoughtfully, then share them between my hands and yours.
We stand together, holding in our hands all the pain of our past; casting each stone in endless arcs across the silent surface; watching each disappear beneath the liquid lines. Our reflections rise and fall; ripple into one another; become one.
“I love you, you know,” I say carefully; and you smile and curve another stone across the water. It dances briefly, and as I watch it sink, my heart lightens and my soul soars.
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There are some places where you use semicolons where a comma or an em dash would be more appropriate. Semicolons should separate independent clauses; if a period could not be used in the same place, a semicolon is the wrong punctuation.
I loved nearly everything in this heartfelt entry. Very, very good.
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