The moon floated like a luminant yellow ball in a child's pool made of willow trees, boughs overhung with Spanish moss like streamers at a birthday party, a spectacle worthy of fine oilpaints and canvas, or at least a postcard from an old friend. The scene was lost, however on Jen. She glanced up at it only occasionally as she ran down the path, small, polished, blue and violet pebbles jumping in the wake of her black and red sandals like the spray from the large rocks she used to throw into the pond behind her first house back in Georgia. Running. She didn't know why she was running, exactly, nor why she was running on that path in particular at such a late hour. The moon half-winked at her through the bucolic overhang. She needed relief from the heat radiating out of her skin, yet clinging close to her body beneath and through her dark orange sundress; an intangible, hot, wet cloak. She somehow knew there was relief at the end of the path.
The path ended at a pond; perfectly circular, a dark midnight blue with violets and reds dancing on the surface in the moonlight. The trees that bordered the path surrounded also this small waterbody, leaving enough space inside the perimeter for one to lie down next to it and stretch in the soft blue-green grass, if one so desired.
She didn’t remember seeing it while running on the path, or slowing down before reaching it. No time had passed between her fervent run and the moment she stood at the clearing’s entrance. Her breath was not even hurried.
The pebble-trail continued into the dark tarn disappearing within.
She stared at the surface, her gaze a gentle finger touching a delicate, yet yielding spider’s web, eventually allowing permeation, then enveloping the visual digit with adherent, silk threads. Within she saw an analogous semi-spectrum of blues, purples, and reds dancing, swirling, and dissolving between and becoming one another. Beneath these she could see life; fantastic, energized, passionate. She marveled at it and peered further.
Her gaze was interrupted by a sharp, cool sensation around her body. She was in the pond. She did not know how she’d ended up in it, nor did that concern her. Her thoughts were focused on how warm the water was becoming. The near hot sensation relaxed her, comforted her, and gave her a massage’s relief. The folds of her sundress that did not cling to her frame like a lover’s eager hands fluttered slowly in the water like the tendrils of a jellyfish.
A warm mass brushed the back of her calf softly, startling her. It reminded her of swimming with dolphins with her aunt in Florida. She surveyed the shimmering surface, seeing only the faintest sign of movement underneath. The mass circled her center, stroking first the small of her back, then her abdomen. She could feel its slick skin through her dress.
Nothing then, save for the sound of water rippling.
Discomforting quiet.
She felt alone, very alone.
In the next moment the water before her swelled. A hump of dark blue water bulged. When it reached the height of her nose, the bulge pulled down, a mass of hair pushing through, followed by a face beneath it.
He had the lean body of a swimmer and just as hairless. His jaw was lean and his cheekbones feminine, almost reminiscent of those of her best friend Ros. His well-penned eyebrows seemed also to be translated from her amiga's face. His lips were full and pale like those of the young man she'd "tongue kissed" for the first time in junior high. His auburn hair was taken from long, straight, vibrant mane of the horses she used to ride with her cousin Julie in Michigan last summer, yet showed no sign of having emerged from the water. His nose was as long and narrow as Jim's who she had exchanged dour glances with ever since he had beaten her in the elections for editor of the college paper last quarter, and yet it suited the fantastical face of the man before her now.
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