Southern Magic

Today I did something magical.

It was spontaneous; a spur-of-the-moment idea. He asked me to tag along and I did. Me and him, my friend, bumping down a road that he saw as the “next crime scene”. But I saw something pretty. Maybe it was the budding trees, or the weeded grass, or the abandoned house with a lake resting quietly in its backyard, but I saw something pretty.

So there I sat, watching his pole slice the air between us. 

Swing plop, it said. Swing plop. 

But no fish were biting tonight. There was no excitement. Just him with his bait, me with my boots, and the lake with smart fish.

It was so pretty.

The water doesn’t sparkle like they describe in the books. It doesn’t shimmer or dance with the sun. No, at this time, it vibrates. It quivers in waves against that sky I can’t stop staring at. There’s no text messages or annoying friends. There’s just sounds I like; the frogs singing, a distant gunshot as soft as gunpowder, a goose calling his family, and that tall boy with his thin pole. 

Swing plop. Swing plop. 

There’s something about it that I like. Something about being wrapped up in a jacket I’ve never worn, sitting on the hood of a car I’ve never driven, looking onto something I’ve never seen. Cold wind lazily rolls over my fingers and my nose and I’m happy. I’m happy sitting there, watching and listening.

I want to come here for my birthday, I say. I’ll take you, he says. It’s so pretty.

Swing plop. Swing plop.

Later, after the sun quickly slipped and the cold got colder, I sat next to last-name strangers. I listened to the laugh and tell stories. I watched them run and scream through the silhouetted trees encasing us around that fire burning at our feet. I watched a boy drag a stick through it and the embers flared hot and angry and the smoke burned my nose. Oh, it burned. But I sat breathing it in and warming my boots, listening to throaty laughs and watching. Never stop watching. 

Swing plop. Swing plop. Laugh the night away. No more heartache for me, just lakes and fires and strangers as friends.

Oh so pretty.