When it’s over, I’m mesmerized by a reflection I see upon the water in the shadow of her skiff. She, a plain girl, come to read beside the lake, now on her back, eyes bulged. And this man—this hideous creature—hands rising from her neck to cover his mouth like a child who’s broken his father’s favorite pipe.
I watch the woman’s chest in the reflection. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting—it does not rise or fall. Then, a raindrop ripples this ghastly image into oblivion, and I reel, teetering away from the disrupted horror.
I stumble over her book, falling to the rushes. But I keep my eyes on the warped reflection; I want to pull on the water like a bedsheet, to remove its creases and confirm what I already know: the devil cupping his mouth is me.
Rustling from the bramble, a hare bounds, disappearing through the trees into the forest.
I scan the shoreline, but my sins are mine alone; forever shall I keep and hold and molest them privately. I pick up the book and throw it into the skiff; the page…
