Reflections that Burn

The mountainside was showing off her autumn wardrobe. Looked like it was on fire. She didn’t stop at the water’s edge. That hot collage of red, orange, and gold; bits of brown and a smidge of stubborn, summer green. Seamless with the real thing, that portrait of mid-October reflected in the still water as if from a mirror.

I tossed my empty can of Bud just to mar the perfection of it. Too beautiful. A silver splash, then ripples. When the hollow husk of the king of beers fills with the cold lake, it’ll drop like a stone, maybe wake some sleeping snapping turtle from a dream of whatever turtles conjure in reptilian slumber. Then it’ll be back to picture perfect. The mountain’s twin sister. Her doppelganger.

I caught a whiff of smoke and second-guessed for a moment about that mountain not being on fire. Then I remembered those embers eating away at a chunk of stump back inside, in the fireplace. The La-Z-Boy right beside it more often than not becomes my bed till I wake up wading through all those empty aluminum cans at my ankles. Last night’s good time. Good time? More like a pacifier.

Then it’s caffeine o’clock, wishing the day were over so I can plant my ass back on the Boy. Cover the wood floor all over again in shades of Bud and silver bullets. Just like the night before. The day before that. Nothing to tell them apart but the side of the mountain, how many leaves reflect in the still water and what color they are. The sizzling hues of her late-autumn nightgown; her slow striptease, one leaf at a time.

The face of the mountain was prettier than my own. But maybe not much wilder. I was looking all kinds of gruff. A haggard piece of meat. Aged enough in the last year to figure it had been ten. Maybe I should cool it with the Buds. Yeah, and while I’m at it, I may just chuck myself over the side of the dock. Right into that perfect lake, messing up her flawless mimicry. And why bother to come back up? Just find that old snapping turtle dreaming about whatever and curl up beside it. Get all cozy in the cold mud and wait until my dead self comes floating up to the top, bobbing, disturbing the still life in the water, more agreeable than my living self. At least he’ll not be bitching and moaning.

Good lord, that sure is one goddamn beautiful looking mountain. Never seen anything half so pretty.

Except Laura. That smile when she brought my coffee come the a.m. Her dimples and bright eyes, more stimulating than the steaming caffeine, more reason to greet the day. Back when mornings didn’t come with two wrong sides of the bed. Back when a few Buds was all I needed at the end of the day. I didn’t even need them, it was just kinda nice to knock them back for the ritual of it. To send the day off and await the next with a smile. Her own smile reflecting back. Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Puts that mountainside to shame, autumn dress or no.

It was the same time last year. The lake afire with the reflection of mid-October. Laura was baking a pumpkin pie, or maybe carving one up to look scary, putting a candle in it so we could watch a face as orange as a certain, divisive ex-president mock us in the dark with a malicious grin. Laura, she was doing something autumnal.

Me? I was out catching the biggest muskie I’d ever laid eyes on. When that line went taut I damn near swan-dived into the cold, and not of my own accord. I was playing tug of war with that sonofabitch till my arms went numb, all wibble-wobble and useless. I reeled in what was feeling like Moby Dick. Reeled him in so near I could smell his fishy breath like an old tuna melt. I could count each razor blade tooth by the tally of daylight gleaming from each shiny scalpel. Halloween on my mind had me thinking of a row of candy corn. But there was nothing sweet about this.

The line broke just when that slick, white belly was flush with the side of the canoe. I watched Jonah’s whale or Neptune himself plunge back into the black. My heart sank down with him. Seeing that fish go, my heart was broken.

But I didn’t know about broken hearts. Not then. But moments later I would know plenty. I’d have myself one of those fancy Ph.D.s. Just like Momma dreamed about for her boy. First time in my life I’d be an expert on anything.

To be brokenhearted.

It blended in so well with the autumn leaves shining up at me from the cold water that I almost missed it. My small house on the lakeside looked like an open gate to Hades, like the fiery apex to one of those periodic spring cleanings when I burn all the trash on the beach. Except this wasn’t Folgers canisters and Bud cans. This was home. The one I built and the one Laura was inside of.

No overturned Jack-o’-lantern could bring down a house. Not without the worst of luck. Must have been a pumpkin pie after all. Left in the oven maybe. Or maybe it was that chunk of stump I had good and lit, a bit of wood shifting the wrong way and splashing out embers on the floor, under curtains. Stop thinking about what and how, and paddle.

But my arms were dead. Limp and useless. I spent all my strength on a fucking fish. But I paddled as fast as I could and maybe never paddled faster in my life. Amazing what the body can do when it needs to. When it sees everything worth living for burning to a crisp along with that pumpkin pie. Those flames had grown high like the mountain behind it. How could such a small house reflect so large a disaster?

Laura, you best be miles away outside of the house. Knee-deep in lake water and watching from afar. Tell me you are. Tell me you are.

Before I even got to the shore I felt waves of heat on my face like the devil had been slapping me around. The canoe hit rock and I was on my feet. I didn’t even think of the dog till I saw her curled up like a steaming lump of is-that-even-a-dog? Nothing but a white snarl set in a black mound of coal.

Some trees near the house went up in flames quicker than a coyote when you miss your mark. Pines, the only thing not red or orange this time of year. The dozen of them took flame and then the rest of the forest joined in. Crimson and amber, gaudy things. Then black, so austere. Funeral dress.

The resounding crack of timbers let me know what was coming next. The foundation collapsed. All inward on itself, like a whirlpool. Like sick, swirling down the sink. A downward spiral. Dreams and hopes and all that matters down the drain.

I never did find Laura. And remembering the dog, I might be glad I didn’t. But something about never seeing her again, fishing one moment, pumpkin pie in the oven and a smile and wave as I set out across the lake in the canoe; something about knowing now, not knowing then, that it was my last moment of happiness, my last moment with Laura—it’s as if I’m already dead. Was dead, but just didn’t know it. As if in purgatory, a long, wretched queue, I walk the elliptical halo of a beautiful, cruel depth of water. Round and round, an eternal circle, it binds me to this place.

New house, but same lake. Same mountains that turn to fire come autumn. I pay rent on a home that doesn’t have an ounce of soul to it. Not even my own to add to the mix. My soul, it withered up last year. Burned away. Turned to ash.

Leaving… it would feel like leaving Laura. Nothing but reflections in the cold water for her to talk to. Leaving… it would feel like giving up on grief. And grief, that’s the only indication that I’m still here, still breathing.

I look at myself in the mirror that is a lake. My twin, or doppelganger. Taking in what should be a familiar face, I’m doubting it’s even me anymore. Amazing how sorrow can transform a man, burn away at him from the inside. They say the phoenix is reborn from the ashes, rising stronger, anew.

My face is wreathed in every hot hue this world can offer. All around me, the mountainside is showing off her autumn wardrobe. Looked like it was on fire.