cosmos short story

I made my way through a dense deciduous forest, overgrown with foliage in every shade of green. After what seemed like ages, a gap in the trees peeked out on the horizon; and suddenly, I was standing before a sprawling meadow bordered by the reaching arms of the woods wrapped around. The tall grass just barely reached my waist, and the slender stalks of white flowers dispersed lightly throughout it grew inconspicuously. Seeing no other path but the one before me, I put one foot in front of the other.

The grass rustled as I walked, no matter how slowly or carefully I placed my steps. An occasional breeze passed through, whipping the surrounding flora into a frenzied dance. In those brief moments, the sound of my footsteps didn’t sound as disruptive amidst the quiet noise of the wind in the trees. I glanced up at the mid-morning sky, reflecting a beautiful and vibrant light blue behind pockets of fluffy, white clouds interspersed throughout. The Sun must have been behind a cloud or something of the sort, since the light shining down onto the meadow looked dulled and filtered. Up ahead, the treeline closed in again and obscured my vision of anything beyond it.

That was until, all of a sudden, I could see a break in the dense foliage directly ahead of me. Past it was a murky, opaque body of water the color of mint ice cream. If I didn’t see the surface ripple and shift, I don’t know if I would have recognized it as water. I could have easily mistaken it for a strange, brightly colored patch of moss; but as I got closer, I saw that the water stretched out much farther than I’d been able to see through the narrow opening in the trees. I also could see that a small island sat in the center of the lake.

The grass thinned out around me as I neared the water’s edge, and I was joined instead by tall stalks of pale white and yellow cosmos flowers. I knelt down to see if anything moved below the surface, but the opacity of the water relented not upon closer inspection. Strands of my own hair fell in front of my face as I leaned over; they were a bright blue hue like the sky on a cloudless day.

On the far side of the bank beyond the island, tendrils of a weeping willow traced ripples along the surface while obscuring a hollow looking log, half-submerged and collecting debris. The log and debris weren’t of much interest, but the willow stood out in particular because its neighbors were mostly oak, maple, and the like. There was an inexplicable comfort to it, like the willow hovered lovingly over its portion of the water. I imagined that one might feel safe beneath the canopy of vines.

I directed my attention to the expanse of water between me and the island at the center. Seeing no other way,  I took a deep breath and submerged one foot in the water. It wasn’t cold at all. In fact, it was slightly warm like a fresh bath. Although that should have been relaxing, the strangeness just unsettled me in a new way. 

I steeled my nerves and willed myself to put one foot in front of the other until I could no longer feel the ground beneath me. The white slip dress I’d been wearing was now soaked through and heavy, adding more resistance as I moved across the lake. I could hear a cacophony of whispers all around me, though I could only make out some of what was being said. Many of them were trying to coax me underwater, encouraging me to drown myself. Some attempted to dissuade me from continuing to the island, telling me to turn back. I ignored them, and pressed on.

After what felt like an eternity, I reached the shore of this small island. I freed myself from the soaked dress still clinging to my body. Being naked at that moment didn’t really concern me. I knew I had to leave everything behind if I wanted to keep going. That means leaving myself temporarily exposed and vulnerable.

There was no noise aside from my soft footfalls atop fallen leaves and twigs. The path had a slight upward slope with a bit of a steepness to it, though it was no impediment. I trudged on until I reached the top where it plateaued into the hill’s summit. A pond took up most of the space: almost perfectly circular, and comparatively smaller than the lake the island sat in, but still pretty big. The color of the water was surreally blue. It was crystal clear and exposed all the plants and creatures below. Though much of the surface was covered in clusters of bright green lily pads that seemed to favor the outer edges, with a few stragglers straying closer to the middle. I looked down and noticed the abundance of flowers that adorned the perimeter of the pond, each sporting an indigo blue starburst of petals around a sunny yellow center: asters.  

I looked up across the lake, and was so startled that I fell backwards onto my elbows. 

Across from me on the opposite side of the pond sat a man with his legs crossed. His facial expression didn’t betray any malice or nefarious scheming. He sat with his back perfectly straight and his eyes were closed. I was a bit afraid to draw his attention to myself since I was still completely naked. Moving only his mouth, he spoke aloud,

“Daughter of Apollo, though the truth is hard to swallow, here’s a message from the stars and from the gods you follow: though you’ve felt forsaken, know that seldom stars awaken in the bright light of the Sun”

I was frozen in the position I’d fallen into, and I could focus on nothing else as his voice bounced off the intimate ring of trees we sat within. I tried to replay the words and pick apart what he meant, when he started to speak again,

Strangely enough, I knew very clearly what that meant. I’d recently lost my father, rather unexpectedly, and I had been trying to deny the death that had simultaneously occurred within myself. With him, an optimistic child inside me had started to rot as well. The one who hoped that maybe if I became good enough or successful enough, I could save him before he destroyed himself; but all that pain and grief existed so that I could grow beyond those expectations and even the dreams I had as a child. Stars don’t shine in sunlight, they shine in the dark of night. Bad things happening is not a punishment, but a necessary evil to maintain balance in the world. 

I looked at the water and knew what I had to do. So, I took a deep breath and stepped into the pond like I was stepping off the edge of a building. 

Although I could see the bottom from the shore, it felt as though I was plunging far deeper than the pond had appeared. At some point, I stopped sinking and kicked my feet to propel myself back to the surface.