AN: I remember my friend challenging me to write about childhood. I didn't have much of one, so I wrote of a young Native-American girl of about six who loves the lake near her home. There's a hint of pedophilia in here, but this is based off of a dear friend of mine... So... I hope you like it.
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She can feel the breeze rush through her.
A symphony of magnificent nature – a corona mixture of red and orange that welcomes the company of the gentle dark. Soft grey clouds pulled like sheets across the sky, thin and flat, blanketing the sun, and the fog begins to spread.
Blissful. Absolutely blissful.
A place where beautiful memories retain in the minds of the trees that come back to remind her in the soft whisper of tender waves. A place where her brother had caught her a small turtle for a pet. A place where her father had taught her a grass dance. A place where she thought she found her very first love. A place of wondrous significance and adventure.
She was never able to forget it. She can see the lake through her window. Very rarely can she appreciate it now, but it's always there. Behind the lenses or through them, it never goes away. Sometimes in the morning she remembers why she used to love it; what once attracted her to it. When she lies tangled in a simple white sheet, drifting along the frayed edge that separates sleep from consciousness, she can look out from her window and see, and then she thinks she remembers.
It was always so quiet. Calm. She liked it that way. She liked the way the water was always so blue across the surface, thin and smooth, pristine, crisp, and beautiful. She liked the way the trees would hide her haven with dark-green leaves and branches that swooped down to the ground. She liked when the storms would rage, producing intimidating crashes of the water against the dusty shore. No matter what, she felt safe.
Then the people came. Only a few at a time, but they still came. An infatuated couple turned into a small group of five or six. Six turned to eight, and eight turned into eleven. Eventually eleven would turn to twenty. All the while the sun would rise from beneath the clouds, chasing away the tranquility of dusk, and casting a harsh light until the water became too bright to look at. Then she closes her eyes beneath heavy disappointment and she remembers why she stopped loving the lake.
But when her long auburn hair was pulled into two full pigtails, she still loved it and all of the sincerity it had in her heart.
Yellow specks of pollen would drift through the air calmly as she laughed and spun through the tall, lush grass. It was always so beautiful against her used-to-be tanned skin, and it was always beautiful in the reflection of her hazel eyes that held so much curiosity for the Earth and how it worked.
A blanket of soft heat and sticky humidity would wrap her up tenderly while the wind whispered her name.
Butterflies would kiss plush lips with their wings, and dragonflies would accompany her when she fell back into the field of dandelions, resting themselves on scabbed knees or soft shoulders. Birds would sing to her and null her into a distant slumber until a passer by would awaken her with, "hey, what are you doing out here?"
Sometimes the voice of the young, blond biker who helped her up when she fell from her rollerblades wakes her up in the night with the way he asked, "sweetie, are you alright?" And with the way he patted her strawberry colored dress away from dirt and stray grass. She was too young to remember every detail now, but when he jumped from his bike to help her, and when he said goodbye with a tight embrace of her feeble frame in his tanned arms, it was enough to help her understand what affection and love was early in her life.
Then the sun would set and the stars would glisten silently and artistically as she skipped home with a smile on her face, twirling that strawberry colored dress. She'd snuggle into bed on the same night and stare out the window at the water that reflected a crescent moon, and she would whisper a 'goodnight' to the man she thought was her first love.
But now, she remembers why she stopped loving it.