The Lake at the Edge of Night
By Casey Jepson



John sat on a rock at the edge of the lake with his bare feet going numb in the cold water. As he watched the moon ooze closer and closer to the horizon, he imagined it taking a trip through Hell as it traveled below the Earth. It would fly inattentively over each circle, watching countless souls feel the pain and sorrow for their sins. Eventually it would reappear over the other side, having just left Purgatory, and would be ready for it’s ascent back to the dark Heaven of the next night’s sky.
John hated the cold. The rock was cold, the water was cold, the breeze was cold. Yet at the same time, he needed it. He wished he could freeze over, be just another still shape under the ice in the ninth circle. A slimy fished brushed his foot and brought him back to his senses. He heard the splash of its tail as it darted away, but in the dark of night he did not see the ripple. The fish, and all sense of where it was now, was invisible underneath this enormous black disc. An unseen frog jumped out of the bush near John and into the water. John heard many splashes as the frog retreated into the wet void.
Why do they all go into the lake? John thought. Not to find food or a place to sleep, but to hide. To go where humans can’t find them. I must hide.
John waded into the lake, stepping over jagged stones and slimy water-plants. As his body got deeper, he felt less. Less of the pain, less of his skin. He set himself a target at the far edge: the deep white skull that reflected from the dying moon. That was his destination. He would swim to it, and ask it to carry him away to the river Styx. As he swam, everything beyond the lake disappeared. The crickets stopped chirping, the stars ceased to shine. There was nothing but him, the endless black sea, and the skull at the center. The skull rose above him out of the water, dripping with blackness; and he could feel not his breath on his lips, or the cold of his skin.
In the morning, the police came to this lake, a shiny disc reflecting azure sky and a radiant sun. Frogs croaked in the reeds, fish basked at the surface. And a man’s body floated in the center, wielding no wounds but the water in his lungs.


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