Legend of the Lake

  I've lived in small town on one of the Great Lakes almost my whole life.  its a town like any other; there's a library, a town hall, various parks, schools and cookie cutter houses as far as the eye can see.  The Lake, well its not the ocean, but damn, its beautiful.  Especially at sunset when the sun seems to melt into the water like a molten hammer striking a mirrored-glass surface.

   So you might see why I wanted to take a boat out to the middle of the Lake to see the sunset from a prime vantage point. And that's exactly what I did a few weeks ago on a cloudless night.  Packing a small dinner of a roast beef sandwich, a bottle of root beer, some cheese and cracker and a slice of chocolate cake, I set out.

   The wind was moderate, the waves weren't overly churning, it was a fine night...or so it seemed..About 3 miles out from shore I turned the motor off and sat back. "This dinner is going to be savory alongside this sunset", I thought to myself.  The sandwich and root beer slowly disappeared, then the cheese and crackers were gone, leaving only the slice of cake.  The sun was just about on the horizon, as I raised my fork to take a bike of moist chocolate-y goodness, the sun sank into the water. But this time I was part of the event, not merely a spectator, a participant. Beautiful, I smiled enjoying the scene and the cake.

  But the enjoyment only lasted for but a moment.  Suddenly the sky turned black, clouds rapidly drew in from all sides like a flock of black sheep herded madly together.  I cannot convey the extent to which this frightened me.  I tried to get a grip on myself and restart the motor.  I grabbed the choke, but then I became stunned by a ring of lightning first on the shoreline, then encircling my boat. I was paralyzed.

   The waves were getting higher and higher, the dark rain began to come down.  The sky was almost black now, but with each lightning strike it flashed into a different radical colour.  Flash! Blue! Back to dark... Flash! Emerald Green! Back to dark.. this what went on for what seemed like ages. I must have passed out after the sky turned a sort of fuchsia hue.

    I woke up on shore; I suppose I had to have ship wrecked.  My clothes were still damp.  It was some pre-dawn hour, my wrist-watch was gone.  I stood up to find that my legs were shaky.  I then looked down at myself to discover that I was glowing softly.  I marveled at this for a moment, only to hear a voice speaking as if on the other end of a tunnel saying "You will find your way.  Do not despair at what you find before you."

    I reached up and ran my hand through my hair in amazement, ending up twice as amazed at my hair being twice as shaggy as it had been a few hours before: or how long had I been passed out?!  Pushing this thought from my mind I set off down the shore, seeing all sorts of wondrous debris: curtains still on a rod, what seemed to be a large polka-dotted octopus, a tall kitchen table and chairs set together on the beach as if that were their natural home.  Also there was a green baseball bat, three left shoes of varying sizes and colour, and a snorkel with mask and fins.  The strange part was all of these items seemed to be fairly intact, in fact the octopus roused itself and crept back into the ocean as if it had only taken a nap on the beach. I rubbed my eyes.

    I continued up the shore, then climbed the hill away from the beach back up to the rest of town.  I was only hoping to find a little more sanity, sadly that was not in the cards...The boring-cookie-cutter-town I knew so well? It was gone.  Not gone in the sense that a monsoon had come through and wrecked the place, no gone as in it looked as if it had never existed.  But the land wasn't empty, in place of my modern lake-side-suburban town sat a whimsical medieval village.

   Again I rubbed my eyes; pinched myself, nope this was in fact real.  The thatched roofs, the stone walls, lack of pavement, no cars, whoa! people riding horses! This was miles beyond strange, where or when was I?

  "Go to the Pavilion, you will find some clarity there and the beginning of your adventure" the voice in my head said. I seemed to be still glowing mysteriously...hmm odd..."Hey voice! wait, what adventure? Where am I? Who are you?" and of course there was no reply. I decided to head for the pavilion in the middle of town, it was still early in the morning so not many villagers were out yet.  On the floor of the thatched pavilion sat a brown box tied with string.  There was a card on top of the box that said only

                                               "For L"

 Supposing that meant me, I untied the string and opened the box, inside were...green clothes?  A long green cap and a matching tunic with knee high boots.  I realized the clothes I was wearing were thoroughly ruined and the green ones looked like they matched the surroundings better; I put them on.  Strangely or maybe not so strangely they fit almost perfectly and were quite comfortable.  So I guess it was time to figure out what sort of adventure that voice was referring to.


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Thanks for reading, I haven't written part two yet, but you might enjoy my story "Into the Tall Grass" if you liked this one.