Sylvia And The Water

Nothing prepares you for the quantity of love.  The words of the poets are only sips at the fountain, forever overflowing.  The songs of the minstrels cupfuls you might carry away.  And even the tales of happily ever after we tell are merely quenching moments.  For love is vast, beyond endless, and no one who slips into its waters can see its depths.

Sylvia Harrow had spent the lazy Wisconsin summer bathing in it like a pampered Eastern princess.  Lounging leg long, submerged to her shoulders in warm and wet, her head back in conscious sleep, lost in the languor of what could be their dreams.  And she would slide forward, slowly sinking, denying her instincts, letting the water touch her face, hold her hair, cover her mouth until she closed her eyes and willingly, wantonly allowed herself to drown.  And lying there full still, soundless, the water told her that she was the Venus he said she was.  She was the one fantasy she saw in the want of his eyes.  The moment of naked desire that only the two of them would ever know.  And he, flawed perfection, was the one enough she had ever wanted, the aching hunger she had glimpsed more than once but had never fully seen.  He was the never alone again, the warm regular breathing bed, the first touch and the last kiss goodnight.  And then she would raise her head like an emerging goddess and feel the wet run down her face, shake her heavy hair, point her painted toes and, mouth half-closed, gasp a breath as if it was the finish of the world.

Sylvia loved being loved and being overpowered by it, but she knew that, slowly upon slowly, the water would cool, the mirror glass surface murk with age, and the steamy mists fade on the breeze of years.  There was no naïve that could convince her otherwise.  But she also knew, deep in the forever sound of his idle laugh, the step she knew from far away and the single scent of him on the pillow, that this would be enough.  What she felt right now would be enough to fill their life with eternity and the waters that surrounded them would always reflect the stars, splash with the rain, freeze and thaw and sparkle in the brilliant sunrise sunshine.