The Composition Changes

The composition changes. The ground freezes. The sky distorts and pulsates. We rise, turning our backs to the flickering flames of the meager campfire. There is no elegance to our forms.

The composition changes. Lakeside trees wave their skeletal branches, gnarled and knotted, guiding us to the water. Our feet bare, we scrape across dirt, stone and twig. We cannot be said to be moving effectively but we move with purpose. Finally we enter the water.

The composition changes. The water swallows our feet, our knees, our torsos. It stops at our neck, even as the soft lake bottom pulls away from our toes. We do not sink, but we cannot ascend.

The composition changes. Our heads tilt upwards. The stars hurt our tired eyes. Filaments of unstable light scrape across our corneas, water rushing in to fill the troughs left behind. We raise our arms from the fetid water and hold our hands before our face. Through the blurriness we see that our fingers are gone. Icy air seals off the stubs.

The composition changes. The water swirls, slowly tightening around our necks like a towel being wrung dry. We lower our palms. Beneath the surface, the current snaps our arms against our sides. What we feel is faint, enough to understand our torsos are still there, enough to understand it does not matter. We are the remotest of beacons, the paleness of our faces barely visible beneath the sick light of distant stars.

The composition changes. Below the surface, our torsos split open. Lake water replaces our blood, our organs, our viscera, our bones. Our heads bob on the surface, part of a unified liquid body. Beneath us this body churns, weaving into an impenetrable lakewater braid.

The composition changes. The lake rises, pushing our heads together. Tipped back so that we can see only the blurred sky, water flows through the open canals of our skulls, dissolving our borders. We are one eye. An eye of many.

The composition changes. Our liquid form rises. Tendrils of water hook the sky and peel it back. The blurriness dissipates.

The composition changes. We see.

The composition changes. We settle into the lake bed, our borders lapping against the cold earth. Above us, the sky pulls itself back together. Elegant at last, we wait.