sylvia pimentalThe Water Situation
November 23rd 2006 00:30
There is a tin shed on the other side of the dirt road at the bottom of The Paradise hill. In it lives a boy, or at least he used to be a boy. The boy is not the only one living in the shed. He has a mother. And, I believe, a father.
This boy is not just any boy, there is something strange and elusive about him. His name is Water.
When I was young and well maybe just young I wished that I had a friend to call my own. Or at least someone who I could get along with and spend time with. It got to the point where I was seriously considering an invisible friend, but the only invisible people I had ever seen had been dead. And one doesn’t really want dead friends. Not really.
But then I met Water and everything changed. I was six and he was ten. He said that life was like a waking dream and I had to agree with him. I never wanted or needed another friend after that. Our infrequent conversations tended towards the cryptically metaphysical and philosophical. We didn’t play games. We spent every spare moment together not doing anything very much. Water said we existed together. I believed him.
Our special place was a dark, steep sided gully where lantana crawled up through the trees and strangled the light as it came down, when we were there it felt like nothing in the world mattered. We never said very much, words didn’t seem necessary. Then one day he went away - to see the real world. He left one morning before the sun came up he was eighteen. I wasn’t surprised when he left, I’d dreamt it. That didn’t make the black hole he left behind any less real nor did it fade the way those things usually do.
This boy is not just any boy, there is something strange and elusive about him. His name is Water.
When I was young and well maybe just young I wished that I had a friend to call my own. Or at least someone who I could get along with and spend time with. It got to the point where I was seriously considering an invisible friend, but the only invisible people I had ever seen had been dead. And one doesn’t really want dead friends. Not really.
Our special place was a dark, steep sided gully where lantana crawled up through the trees and strangled the light as it came down, when we were there it felt like nothing in the world mattered. We never said very much, words didn’t seem necessary. Then one day he went away - to see the real world. He left one morning before the sun came up he was eighteen. I wasn’t surprised when he left, I’d dreamt it. That didn’t make the black hole he left behind any less real nor did it fade the way those things usually do.
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