Work Text:
She crawled out of the lake today—
Dragged her body onto the shore. The fog was thick and the sky was gray and the rain whispered gently through the trees. And no one was there to greet her
When she crawled out of the lake today—
And her arms ached from the strain of dragging her body onto the shore. Her lungs burned from the effort of coughing up all the water (so much water) and her legs seared from the effort of kicking up, up, up, away from the moss and river plants, and her head throbbed from the effort of creation.
It was a good pain. An antiseptic pain. It reminded her that she was alive and that
She had crawled out of the lake today.
For the first time in a long time (since well before that hazy time before the lake and the fog and the empty town), she felt light. She laughed and her voice was light too, higher and clearer and right. An absurd part of her wanted to get up and dance, all by herself on the lakeshore.
And when she crawled out of the lake today
She was free—of possessions, of memories, of the ugly and sharp-angled thing that she used to call her body (before she had been given the chance to participate in the act of creation, before she had shaped flesh and bone into something new), of names and clothes. Nothing around her told her who or what she was supposed to be—and she was happy.
She had the feeling that whoever or whatever she had been before, she had left it at the bottom of the lake. She had the idea that she would reinvent herself, find new clothes and new memories and perhaps a new name if she felt like it, and she would live the rest of her life here as the sole resident of this empty town, and if anyone found her skulking around in the foggy light she would tell them in no uncertain terms to go away again, go away at once—
Because she had crawled out of the lake today despite everything and she would not allow this total weightlessness, this freedom from identity and other people, to be taken away from her.
And if they did not go away, she would make them, clawing and screaming and maybe biting them if they got too close, and they would be frightened and leave. And she would be alone again in the empty town, and she would be happy.
Yes. That would be how she lived.
For food she would eat pine needles and lake plants, and every night she would sleep somewhere different, and she would never be frightened of the cold. On Sundays, or when the light was just right, she would dance with the fog, and she would always swaddle herself in a blanket of gentle rain.
And she would make herself into the heart of the town, and as long as she was alive the town would be too, no matter how long it had been empty and abandoned, and the lake would be the center of her kingdom, a beautiful blue-gray in the ethereal light.
And she would tell the story of her rebirth—to the empty streets and driving rain and endless fog. She would point to the center of her kingdom and say—
I crawled out of the lake today. I crawled out of the lake today. I crawled out of the lake today.