A Reflective Opportunity

She is fiercely scratching the tip of her nose. It’s always itchy when she’s nervous. She recognises the surge of prickly heat rushing upwards from the pit of her stomach to the top of her throat as she stares down, sombre-faced, boggle-eyed, to the pending feat in front of her and her own hand’s aggressive movements. Her long skinny toes grasp tightly around the edge of the rock on which she stands. A straight and languid posture prominently emerging from the stone like the ruins of a Roman column that one day could’ve held the weight of an entire fort resting on its back. It’s just Cata though, paralysed in fear, too scared to jump into the lake, too unpolished, not strong enough. Too absorbed in her private idiom, the inner recurrent dialogue she’s strongly developed in her solitary life, which violently puts her down more often than it offers words of encouragement. A heavy silence hangs heavy over the platoon like a translucent silky mantle, glossing from the tallest treetops that seem to graze the blue sky, down to the smallest shrubs that share the shadowy space with the crisp golden leaves coating the forest floor. 

The minimal amount of light that finds its way through the labyrinth of fizzy branches is bent and dispersed against Cata’s naked back like millions of tiny windows shining into the secret life of the wilderness. She notices the familiar tingle of imbalance that painfully rises up your calf when the soles of your feet have rested upon an unstable surface for too long. Her toes start to ache, yet she feels the urge to press down even tighter around the tiny peak of rock she’s depending on to stay upright. Revelling on the hot streak of pain travelling through her nervous system from the tip of her toe, through her foot, up her heel valiantly suspended in the air, and up her unprotected calf.

This needs to get done soon, 

she thinks to herself. And by their own nature, her eyes quickly travel to the next source of distraction, the glistening surface of the water below. 

Does light travel in waves? So how come we say, 'ray of sunshine'…? She keeps going, Oh wait, this totally looks like a ray. Maybe light doesn't a c t u a l l y travel in waves. Who discovered that? Is that just UV light? Wait microwaves emit UV rays, don't they? You know what’s so good, microwaveable mug brownies... I should go buy the stuff and have that tonight. After dinner, though - STOP IT. You're digressing again. Come back to it. 

Her pupils dive down in self-deprecating anger across the pool of jade that is her iris, her vision moving past the toes and ignoring the sun rays - or waves, and focus sharply on the challenge ahead. It’s not a very high fall at all. The rock in which she stands barely rises over a few of the shrubs behind her, and the muddy surface of the shore would soften the crash, she thinks. 

Just jump in, just a tiny, quick step forward and it will be over, and you will be IN the water and OUT in less than it takes you to decide on doing it.

Her eyes run around what’s in front of them, then her head follows and together they scan her surroundings instinctively, hoping to find some form of company that could offer calming words of support for her, seeing as she can’t provide that for herself. Or any words at all would do. There aren’t. There’s no one. She’s all alone. A swift but bitter breeze ruffles her hair and gives her goosebumps. Her heart stings with the comfort of a memory that although intensively painful is also incredibly familiar. Solitude and self-disgust in this place had been all she’d ever been able to know. 

Up ahead she can see what used to be the camp’s makeshift playground hiding behind some trees. The counsellors always tried to make up for the rotting state of the place, but all the structures were made out of wood, so the decay had begun exactly the day the planks were brought in from the city. Nothing escaped this lake. The aging process had especially taken a toll on the play-tower and the climbing frames that were now just a pile of wood compost.

You need to do this for yourself, Cata, you got this. The water is not that cold, and the lake is not that deep... 

She shivers uncomfortably on top of her rock. 

This is some really deep dark water right here. Monsters hide in deep dark waters. Can I even see the bottom? I think that might be a rock. Or sand...? WHAT WAS THAT was that a fish??? I saw silver. Shark. Oh no these are shark infested waters, I knew it. This can happen… I bet years ago a few little sharks got in through a creek somehow - maybe somebody put them in. Yeah, that seems more plausible. Reason with yourself. NO! R e a s o n with yourself you idiot, there are no sharks, this is a lake. We HAVE to jump. We? You're such a psycho. 

She rolls her eyes at no one but herself and, preoccupied with her own sanity, stares straight down to the water below her. Until it stares back.

The light refracting with every new ripple in the water is casting a corrugated yet obvious image onto the observed surface of the lake. The crest of every new undulation forms every small but meaningful piece of the overall ball-sized projection. She kneels down, the arch of her foot trembling with difficulty as she balances on just the soles of her feet at the top of her rock. 

Is that…? Me?

It is unbearably indistinguishable. She ogles at the projected picture, a pale, heart-shaped face marked by protruding cheekbones on either side that frame a pair of eyes just a bit lighter than the seaweed on the near shore. As the light rays reach the bottom of the lake, they are scattered by the objects down there and then fall back out to the surface for her eyes to see. 

The face twitches a bit, the eyes getting used to their new environment and swaying with the incessant waves so much that Cata has to think twice if she had moved her own face at all before realising the reflection was moving of its own accord.

Cata leans even lower to be closer to the water, squinting her eyes and unconsciously wrinkling her nose and upper lip so painfully hard in concentration that it feels like her face is about to get folded up and sent away with the rest of her scepticism. The eerily undulating face, which feels as foreign as a stranger to her creator, looks back at Cata’s own face and apparently notices its perplexity. To which the foreign face, still struggling to fit the limited role of the reflection, closes only its left eye and crooks the slimmest smile on that same side. This only aggravates Cata.

“Did - did she just wink at me? She just did, didn’t she. She?” This she said aloud, unable to control her surprise. “That’s not just a She, that is me. She’s me? Am I you?” that last question she meant for the reflection, and it understood, for it scrunched its face ever so slightly and then like a spring, bounced back to its comfortably apathic appearance. “You’re me.” She continues, and the face ever-so-slowly closes its eyes signalling a nod. “Right.” 

This is nuts, 

she thinks. 

This isn’t real. Wow I’m THAT panicked about jumping into a stupid lake that I’m seeing things now. Great. So I’M the only one that’s nuts here.

The face is only staring back blankly, and Cata notices its mouth isn’t moving when hers does. 

Oh, this is ridiculous. 

She fumbles to get even more comfortable at the top of her rock so that her feet are fully arched, and her thighs are resting against her calves. 

“Why can’t I even do this? How come, I struggle so hard to believe that I am capable of doing this, when it’s something I have to do so badly?” The face only gives an understanding but empty expression back. 

“Thanks.” She says, getting visibly frustrated. “You’re quite useless you know that?” She gradually tries to incorporate upwards, careful not to lose balance when doing so and keeping her eyes locked in on the surface below - scared the face would disappear back where it came from. But she quickly regrets it and comes back down while stretching her arms upon her rock, holding on until she feels confident enough to rise again.

“Maybe I’m the useless one. Can’t even do the one thing I’m supposed to do for myself.” The face responds with a slight frown of her eyebrows that to nobody else but Cata would be interpreted as evoking confusion. Cata browses her reflection in painful detail, studying it like she had done in front of a mirror hundreds of times before. Her vague eyes and uncared-for eyebrows, the childish cheeks, the scarred lips, the discoloration, and marks from years of battling against her own skin. “I can hear them, you know. All the time. I know there are birds singing from the top of those trees, and the water burbling around me, I know. I even heard frogs down by the river on the way here. And I hear the counsellors calling in for supper, I hear children running in the playground across the lake, easily climbing up and using the castle as a watchtower, hoping to see something beyond. But it’s only their stupid giggles and dumb clapping that I really listen to, following me all day long, calling me names, mocking me. The snarky comments, the cold expressions, the muteness when I’d walk in - they would never give me a break to even get into this stupid lake. In their dumb tiny bikinis. And I tried, you know? The whole time I was trying, and it never happened for me. They didn’t care. They didn’t want me around… Not even once.”

The face on the water is only staring blankly back. “Wait what am I complaining about? They were asshole ratty kids with nothing better to do than take the time to leave the odd one out. I was just myself, and who cares that I didn’t fit into their tight exclusive cliques – they’re absurdly arbitrary cliques too. I don’t need that now, it’s over. It’s over now.” Her voice had gotten stronger and higher pitched, and she felt an annoyingly heavy burn at the back of her throat. 

Pull yourself together. Quit looking at that ugly quiet reflection for god’s sake. It can’t even talk back to you. 

The face gives her a slight movement upwards of its lips, which Cata didn’t quite understand. 

“What?!” Her voice becoming stern and demanding. The face, however, only smiling, a bit more brightly this time, then springing back to its original position - at the top of hundreds of ripples in the water. A crowd of clouds had gathered in the sky and the reflection was shyly half-disappearing now with every new set of ripples. Cata is only standing there, examining the slowly dissipating reflection, examining herself. 

I don’t care about this. This doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not that kid, I don’t even think they’re those kids anymore. I wouldn’t know, but - I don’t really care either. 

“You know, sometimes people don’t realise that not everyone interacts with their realities the same way.” She says, crouching, looking down at her own reflection. 

“The tiniest divergence from the norm that can mess with an entire system, like a domino – No, like a pebble against water – like a rock when you throw it into the lake like this” And she stretched her arm to grab a nearby pebble, and threw it at a slant into the water, so that it bounced a few times before plopping in and sinking to the bottom. “The waves around it expand, then the rock breaks through the water barrier and the rings, on the water…” Squinting her eyes, focusing on the diminishing ripples in the water in front of her, she continues, “The infinite and ever-expanding rings around the point at which the tiny pebble lands; those rings touch all the way through the lake. They touch the shore over on that side. And it’s just this tiny rock that made all of that happen, and it’s such a minuscule pebble, isn’t it?” She reaches out again and grabs another, even smaller, pebble. Looking at it and inadvertently letting out an excited smile she says in a surprisingly loud volume, “Who cares about a damn rock, right?!” She is looking right ahead when she finishes speaking those words to herself, to her reflection, to anyone or anything willing to listen. This rock she throws straight into the water as hard as she can. No bouncing, just a messy splatter. 

She incorporates herself and looks down at what’s in front of her. She glances at the old camp site, where the noisy resentment will now begin to quiet down. She looks down to where the reflection presented itself, barely lingering now but still yet present, as it would be for ever. But for probably the first time in a long time, she is in control. And without looking any further, she clenches her teeth and jumps up as far as her muscles will take her. Stretching herself even further as she did so and pushing down her feet against the rock with all her force and already mid-air now – letting her legs be the last thing to power her body before flying.

Splash. The cold envelops every inch of her, she suspends herself underwater, taking a second to get used to this new environment. The freeing, fresh feeling of being alive. She takes the silence in, the darkness and the cold and nothingness surrounding her. Yet she feels no discomfort, no fear. She is the conqueror who reigns over all that surrounds her. Still, she doesn’t dare open her eyes, in case a mouthful of spiky teeth and a crushing jaw is all she sees. It’s not. There are no sharks in this lake.