Jump Far

The Lake was always colder at that time of the year. The fall season brought all of the debris and mud up from the bottom, making it seem like there was no longer a Lake, only a muddy patch between two tree lines. The one side, the safer side, was retained by cliffs of varying size. The Lake could only be compared to ice fishing in Alaska, the top blanketed in matter, but without the fish. People, tourists mostly, would attempt to trudge across to the other side with the expectation of a shortcut to better hiking trails. This was never the case. Farther up the Lake was a singular bridge that crossed the length of the murky water, known really only by the people who lived in the area. The bridge was the least traveled path due to its position off of the designated trails, and the countless “Beware of Bears” signs adorning its vicinity.

During the summer the Lake wasn’t clear either but the debris and natural matter would sink back down, it was dark enough to where you could never see the bottom, or the massive rocks that sat just beneath the surface, but the water was warm all the way through. Making it a perfect swimming spot and the best place to have parties, the only place where it could be guaranteed that cops wouldn’t shut it down. Not only was the water warm but the cliffs on the one side of the Lake were easy to scale and get to the top with relative speed, even as intoxicated as most of us were that summer. There were five cliffs that were the best for cliff jumping, the smallest being ten feet roughly, the biggest would have been maybe thirty-five. The one you could most commonly see people climbing up was the third one which had the safest way up, and from there you could get on the other four with ease. The general way up the third cliff was a path around back, after maybe five minutes on the path it opened up a little and you could clearly see the massive tree that was growing in and out of the marble rock. At first glance you would expect another path, maybe behind the tree, but you would have no such luck, climbing up the massive tree was the most daunting part of the trek and where most people would bail out and walk back to the front side, where there was a small beach. Once you were maybe 20 feet up in the tree you had to shimmy out onto one of the big sturdy branches and drop on to the cliff that was four or five feet below it, from here you could climb the rock or drop down to get to the other cliffs with relative ease.

What we had all found funny was, once you were up on the cliff the only way off was down, down fifteen feet into the water below. We all tried countless times to get back into the tree from the cliff but there was no way you could get back on without falling twenty feet back to solid ground. Jumping off was easy, almost always safe too. “Jump out… far. Far enough away from the rock, or you will slam into it at the bottom... okay? Jump far.” We we’re all told this, and later that summer would relay that exact message over and over again to new people. Everyone listened to that. We all saw the memorial plaques at the trailhead going to the Lake and knew what would happen if we didn’t.

But this isn’t about the Lake in the summer, this is about it after, when it got colder. In the fall there seemed to be a constant damp fog hanging over the muddy top, never thinning, never lifting, no matter the weather. The fog made it even harder to find the people that tried to cross the Lake. Like I had said earlier, the mud and everything that came up from the bottom of the Lake made the top look virtually solid, and in some spots it was. It was never solid enough though, especially to hold the weight of a child let alone an adult. If you were to attempt to cross, you would almost immediately sink, getting stuck beneath the layer of whatever it is... drowning, the lake consuming you. This happened every fall, without fail. It would be a normal friday, then you would hear about it, that some couple from somewhere in Virginia went to the Lake with their two kids and never came back. Never found. Not ever.

No one ever questioned why only one out of the nine or so bodies would reemerge. It was always a surprise when one would come back, usually this happened in mid spring when the Lake would start to clear, the sludge would start to sink and whatever was hiding under it would come back up... most of the time. There had never been an official record of how many people the Lake would take away but from my understanding the number must have been pretty high because it was common knowledge in that little town to stay away from the Lake during the fall. In the winter it didn't matter because the sludge would freeze, I had always thought that it looked like it was suffocating under the frozen mud, like it was hungry, maybe it was.

It was normal to hear people talking about the Lake like it was a person, and not just some natural body of water. When I was younger, really young, maybe four or five, my friend's mom was talking on the phone, the Lake had been brought up in conversation, and I assume a person must have just gone missing because she was acting strange and slightly distraught. She said something along the lines of: “It always swallows them. We’re not going to see him again.” From then on I wondered if the Lake really was just a Lake and not something else, with an appetite, because it sometimes felt that way. At the end of an especially long fall, one of my friends told me that he counted, and seven people had gone to the Lake and not come back. To my knowledge none of them resurfaced.

One warm summer evening, I and many others climbed the third cliff and sat at the top, watching eachother jump off one by one into the warm water below. Soon it was just me and the other girl there, I can’t remember her name but I remember what she told me. She stood up and walked to the edge, I followed her soon after. I was looking to the sky at the setting sun, she was looking down into the water, “You see that?”

“See what?” I looked over to her and then to the lake.

“Over there in the water, just next to that big rock.” She gestured over in its general direction, and looked at me.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Those things in the water next to the rock, right there.” She pointed, I could make out a vague shape in the water but nothing clear enough to identify.

“The Lake grass?” I guessed, and looked at her to see if we were talking about the same thing. She calmly looked back at me and she seemed almost disappointed, like she had hoped she wouldn’t have to explain herself.

“I don't think that's Lake grass.”

“What else could it be then? A shark?” I was confused and had thought that maybe she was messing with me, I remember not wanting her to elaborate, I wanted the conversation to end. I wanted to jump off.

“I think it’s the people. Ya know? Like the ones that don't come back.” She said this casually with unadulterated sureness, like she had thought it through, many times before.

“You're kidding right? Like you’re messing with me...right?”

She shrugged, “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” pinched her nose and in the blink of an eye was plunging back down to the water.

“That's morbid.” I spoke to no one in particular, but the Lake heard me.

After that I didn’t want to jump off into the water, it felt like something was waiting for me down there. So I stood at the top and looked out to where she had pointed, squinting to try and see better. I swear I could make out the shapes of people under the water just on the other side of the Lake, but I couldn’t be sure.

I think about that girl a lot and sometimes, on the hottest days of the summer, she comes back to the Lake with her friends. I can see her at the top of the third cliff, maybe she sees me. I know she’s looking, because she is the only one out of all the people that climb up, who looks to the other side. She's the only one.

From under the water everything looks nicer, like you're looking through stained glass, even the sludge, it makes everything look purposeful. I had never understood it until now, that the Lake, like everything else, is hungry and just like everything else, needs to eat. I can feel it’s hunger now, in my bones aching constantly, it’s the only feeling that exists. The water has lost its warmth, it’s cold and dark. That darkness seems to go on forever sinking deeper and deeper, sinking into me as I sink into it. I wish I could tell them the truth, there are still so many things I have to say.

I have no mouth. And I must scream.