Wading Out To A Vessel

That night, studying the dark waters of the lake that displayed only stars and the path to a crooked moon, I felt an emptiness that seemed to stem from the infinity of sky above, mirrored on the serene waters. I’d hoped they’d have a calming effect on me, but my head was in turmoil. A fool’s errand. That was the phrase that arrived in my mind. It was one my mother had used a lot, before she’d left.

‘Grace,’ she would say, ‘your ambition will be your undoing. Forget these foolish dreams of yours. You can’t save him.’

I stood and attempted to skim the stone I had been clutching across the water. Instead, it sunk straight away, and I could sense the ripples spreading through the dark. I picked up another one and hurled it into the night. I heard the splash it made. The sound pleased me. Cause and effect. I threw another one for luck and turned back toward camp.

I had a decision to make. The lab had been generous in the amount of time they’d granted me to take this field trip, or expedition - as I had grandly termed it. I knew the leadership had probably laughed at me behind my back, scoffed at my proposal as soon as I’d left. In fact, I’d seen the smirks at our last meeting, when I’d presented my plan. Still, it took nothing on their part to let me go. It’s not like I ever took time off anyway. But time was running out and soon I’d have to return to my desk and carry on with my assignments, dull and mundane as they were. Besides, I barely had any supplies left, and the good weather wouldn’t last for ever.

There had been no sign of it anywhere. The thing I was searching for didn’t exist. The stark reality of my situation was beginning to dawn on me, my dreams vanquished along with it. My mother had been right. I hadn’t managed to save my father, even with all my knowledge and learning and studying and hard work. Perhaps she had harbored, deep within, a hope that I might succeed. Perhaps my failure and her subsequent disappointment was what prompted her to leave and never contact me again. But I was set on a path now and had to follow it to the end. So many years had been spent in research, in developing what now seemed only to amount to a delusion. My faith had been resolute throughout, fueled by a desire to save the ones I loved. Now it was shaken, and beginning to dissolve.

I felt more alone than I ever had before. I zipped the tent up in an attempt to secure myself against the outside world and as I drifted off to sleep, I thought I heard a splash from the lake. Some size for the sound to reach me here, I thought, as off I went again into dreamland.

In the morning I determined to take the boat out and scan for signs. As before, the lake was placid. The kayak bobbed on the surface, seesawed as I embarked, and then steadied as I cast off.

The lake was huge, big enough to contain an island in the middle. It was the one place I hadn’t yet ventured to. The stretch of water separating us seemed daunting, but I felt like I had exhausted all other options. On previous excursions I had followed the shoreline around, so much so that I knew it intimately: the inlets and coves and outcrops.

As I rowed leisurely toward the island, enjoying the exercise, my mind was put at ease and returned, naturally, to the thoughts that had consumed me for the past ten years. The salamander to me was a magical creature: able to regenerate parts of its body that have been injured or lost. It became an obsession, and the primary focus of my work as a biologist.

In my research I had stumbled across old news reports of sightings of a salamander of gigantic proportions that inhabited this lake, here in the middle of nowhere. Most people had put the sightings down to the local’s proclivity for a type of psychedelic mushroom that could be found in the area. Despite this, I was intrigued and knew I had to investigate for myself. But it had proved to be a fool’s errand indeed. Like grasping at a dream. Even now though, as I considered the implications of something that size being able to regenerate lost limbs, I could feel my heart beat a little faster. What it would mean for modern medicine, for my studies, for my reputation. It was too late for my father, but there were many more like him that might be saved, and I would also be able to save myself from obscurity, to rise above my station. I saw myself on stage receiving awards for my work. A Nobel Prize even. My mother returning to congratulate me. These were the types of fantasies that had enabled me to endure the many lonely nights as I searched and searched for proof to my theory.

The kayak nosed with a soft crunch up against the gravel bank. I was at the island. The light here seemed different. The atmosphere heavier. There were trees so ancient it seemed they had different personalities to the ones back on the mainland. A steady vibration of insects intoned a backdrop to a chorus of birdsong that filtered through the hanging vines that closed like curtains behind me as I pushed my way through to the interior. I spent a while exploring the island. I don’t know how much time passed; it was like another world that ran to its own rhythms.

A crashing in the vegetation beyond and then a splash as something large entered the water. I felt a shiver all the way down my spine. I had spooked something. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure of myself, but cautiously headed toward the source of the noise. I arrived at the shore. I could see the line of the mainline beyond.

I realised that the light was failing. Clouds had built and towered over the scene. The birdsong had ceased.

I knew I’d have to return immediately. If I rowed quickly, I should just about make it. I started back toward my kayak at a brisk pace.

By the time I was halfway back to the mainland, I felt the first smattering of rain. The wind surged, pushing waves before it. The kayak bucked like an animal new to water. I plunged the oar repeatedly into the water, fighting the swell. My entire body burned, adrenaline coursing through me as the elements conspired to send me overboard.

For the first time in a long while, I said a prayer. And then I was pitched into the dark and seething waters.

I woke, shivering, face in the sand, water seeping from mouth and nose. With a groan I got to my knees and looked around. A strange calm had settled. Night had fallen and the full moon risen.

I followed the coastline back in the direction that I thought my camp was. I recognized the features of the landscape through the help of the moonlight and knew I didn’t have far to go, so was hurrying along when I nearly tripped over something lying on a sandy spur of beach.

My breath caught in my throat and I began to tremble, not from the cold now, adrenaline again lit me on fire. I’m sure a gasp escaped my lips, though I was somewhere beyond words, beyond sound or sense or anything approaching reason. All I could see was a glowing form of wonder, recognized through countless hours of studying, which manifested in the abstract inhabitant of my dreams.

The moonlight lit on its pale, almost translucent skin. Barely daring to breathe, I rounded the body, the tail. One limb had been severed at the elbow. The storm must have trapped it beneath the waves. I pictured it in that moment being dragged along the bottom of the lake, as somewhere above I had also fought for my life.

I crouched by the head and took a few precious moments to take in its rare beauty.

The realization then hit me that all my equipment had been lost overboard when the kayak capsized.

I ran stumbling back to my tent. I needed something to record it, to record some kind of proof of what I had witnessed. I had a spare phone in my vehicle. I grabbed it and immediately headed back to the spot where the salamander had been. I got there, breath ragged.

I expected the light from my phone to illuminate the figure of my dreams, but it found only empty space, then jerked erratically as I spun around, desperately trying to find what had been there before. There was nothing, only a disturbance in the sand. Four footprints led a tail that trailed back into the water. I fell to the floor and wept bitterly, a decade of pressure was released in an instant and poured out of me. It was like I was drowning.

I had been so close. It felt like I was only just waking from a dream, and all I wanted to do was fall asleep again to return to it.

Eventually, after the sobs subsided, I picked myself up, returned to my tent and had the best night’s sleep of my life: dreamless.

In the morning I packed camp, put everything in the vehicle, started the engine and sat behind the steering wheel ready to leave.

I couldn’t resist one last look at the lake.

The kayak was bobbing in the water some way offshore, I waded out to it, and as I reached to take it in hand, I could’ve sworn I saw something long and silver flash beneath the surface.

I stood there for a moment, up to my waist in water, took a deep breath, then slowly submerged myself so that the world became muted and enclosed around me. My lungs burned and finally I stood up again. As I breached the surface, I felt like a new person.

Luckily, I arrived home over the weekend, so had a few days to prepare myself before going back to the lab.

The smug look on the faces of my superiors as I told them that I’d returned empty handed nearly inspired me to proclaim what I had really witnessed. As did the pitying glances of my colleagues as I returned to my desk and logged back into my computer. I could barely find the motivation to check my emails, knowing the backlog I would have to get through. Then I remembered the salamander. Recalled the moonlight on its silvered flanks. No one would believe me, in fact they would think I was mad, delusional, in denial of my failure. But my faith at least had been restored.

Once I had caught up with my workload, I handed in my notice, with it came a sense of freedom that had long since been alien to me.

I knew the direction that my research would take now. I had seen proof of the impossible. And if not myself, I was sure I would be able to save someone eventually. Maybe even my mother. Cause and effect.