Cathedral Lake by Paul Hina


1

Cathedral Lake
by Paul Hina

        Maybe this town is all towns. Maybe these lovers are all lovers. Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe this is all dreams.

        The lake is hidden, unseen from view, deep in the foliage. There are many rumors floating around the lake, and the property that surrounds it. It is a constant source of conversation in this town we come from. Its mystery escapes no one.
        The idea that someone may own that beautiful lake is a horrible thought. It seems as if they would be trying to keep us away from a beautiful piece of paradise, a heaven that everyone preaches so much about.
        It has become something of a tradition for young couples to sneak onto the land late at night and swim, or to just lay and make love under the moonlight with the lake in full bloom, strung out before their bodies.
        There is a mystique attached to the lake, a romance. The people that live in the house, that overlooks the enormous wealth of land that surrounds the lake, are as mystical as the lake itself. They are completely unknown. The questions about their existing are asked as often as the questions about the healing effects of the lake. Many of the young people that have made their way from the lake have been immediately greeted by the police as they step out of the foliage onto the road. It is assumed that those who dwell within the land do not desire anyone there, but it keeps no one away. In fact, it probably just builds curiosity as this town I live in wakes up each morning with their noses in the newspaper to see who was caught there from the previous night. The police have come to assigning an officer to the road outside of the woods. Every night, without fail, a couple comes from the woods, and every night, without fail, they are charged with trespassing. The strange thing is that never does more than one couple go in to the woods. Never does a visit consist of more than two people, or less than two people.
        The lake has come to be called many things. It is a historical enigma, the riddle of this town's world. I am near this place that people hear about, but hardly believe. Even I have doubted its existence.
        I must try to better convey the importance of this lake before I continue with my story. This lake is feared as much as it is praised. The people that go there never come back the same. It is a riddle because of the nature of its apparent effect on those who have visited. It is said that the people that visit see visions. It is said that when a couple enters the woods they are lost to themselves for many days. One couple enters and another from a previous day is returned. The police do not talk, and the town people do not ask questions. The people that have been to the lake refuse to speak of it. There have been cases of people trying to convey their experiences, but they are quickly hushed by the fear of the lake’s mystery being uncovered. People prefer it be a mystery. People prefer not to know the depth of the truth that is thought to be found in the lake.
        This is a night of sleep. I will never remember a night of sleep being as restful as tonight. My dreams are one and long. The dream is simple and telling, sincere but stern.
        The lake, that mysterious lake, laid out for me like a blanket in the grass. She is there. Her shoes propped up at the foot of a tree. Her stockings lay delicately atop them. She removes her dress by lifting it over her shoulders. Her beautiful face is uncovered before me. Her hair falls down around her shoulders, back, and some lucky strands visit her chest. She has never been more beautiful.
        I find myself already without clothes as she runs toward the lake. Her head looking back to be sure I am chasing after her, which I am. We reach the lake, embrace, kiss. She looks at me, my hand in hers, the taste of her kiss still fresh in my mouth. She goes to step into the lake with the tips of her toes hovering over the unmoving water--touch the water. It ripples outward into a series of presumably perfect circles that spread open into the vision of a cathedral. She dives into the circles, the vision, as if expecting it to last only a moment. I follow her without hesitation.
        There are so many layers to this water’s depth that I hardly believe that I could survive, and yet my environment was never more decorated with such beautiful pieces of earth. She brushes up against me, her hands full of flower petals that she has caught as they have begun floating up from beneath us, swirling in the bubbles of our breath. She presses my lips with her own, and I dare not compare any kiss to that kiss--a kiss reserved only for dreams.
        The flower petals are coming from underneath a door. A door decorated with the images reserved for the great churches of god. There are angelic etchings cut into the great door's frame. We dive deeper, falling into the cathedral that seems to be laying on its back, probably nothing more than a product of our disorientation. Nevertheless, we roll down its aisle, both of us nude, catching our balance directly in front of the great church's pulpit. The patrons of this church are nude as well. All of them as near our age as I can imagine. Everyone appears to be making love, but then as if to suddenly acknowledge us they break from their love making to applaud us. The whole congregation throws flower petals at our feet, draping them all about our bodies so that the petals themselves become like water. The beautiful flow of these flowers dry us clean of whatever dirty life has ever surrounded us. We are clean, and we look at one another to laugh, a laughter of no guilt, no shame.

 


2

        Behind the pulpit, against the back wall of the church, there stands a large clock. This clock has a door attached to it. We approach this clock, and as I reach to push the door open I look over to her. A tear falls from her eye. I wipe it away with a kiss. The salt from the tear dances on my mouth for a moment. She smiles. We are ready.
        I push the door open, and everyone in the church seems to simultaneously reach a climax. There is a sustained series of heightened exhales that lead to one shared orgasm that lifts the spirit of the church to a heavenly echo. Then a bell sounds. It sounds twelve times. I awake and know, and know that she does too.
        There is only one road from town that leads to the lake. I am not concerned with rather or not she will be there waiting for me. I know she will be. I began walking as soon as I awoke. I trust that she did the same. And I trust that we awoke, both of us, precisely at the dream's end, which I was certain we had shared.
        When I got to the foot of the road that leads to the lake, she was approaching me from the other side. We are not surprised to see one another. She is wearing exactly what she was wearing in the dream, which I am sure was left for her in the same fashion that my clothes were left for me.
        She is as beautiful as she was in the dream. This is not surprising. She is always beautiful. She knows that I can hardly manage my wits about me when I am near her in the state of dress she is in. That feminine air she normally exudes is only intensified by her garments. However, she is dressed in that white dress for the cathedral.
        I am wearing a suit, the only suit I own, a suit that I didn't own until this morning, a suit that was waiting for me at the foot of my bed when I awoke. I did not question its being there. I only questioned how quickly I could have it on so as to sooner be out the door, and on my way.
        We began to travel hand in hand, never talking, glancing ever so often to memorize each other’s face until our next glance. This was not uncommon for us. I cannot imagine any two people in all the world being more in love than we are. Her hand still shocks me when we touch. Her eyes still see the things inside me that no one else sees, and she is the only thing I care to see when I look beyond who I am. She is my light at night, and my reason in the morning.
        It is a long walk. We knew that. We had never been as far as the lake before. Come to think of it, I had never been on this road before. I don't know the road's name. I don't even know what else is contained on the road, besides the lake, the house, and the woods that surround them. I do not know why it is I am so confident that we will know this lake when we get there. I know that the house will be hidden within its woods. I have nothing but hope that we will know it, but I trust that we will.
        We say nothing. Nothing has been said. We have been walking for the better part of the day. Tiredness has not reached us. Hunger has not occurred to us, and water is waiting for us at the lake. Until then we will not drink.
        Time has been moving as if not time at all. A moment passes and a new moment begins. The same moment as before, the only difference being in our progress, but the time does not seem to move as we have known it to move. The night has begun to fall across the sky, and we are sure we are near the lake. I can smell the flowers. The potency of the buds fills the air. Her allergies cause sneezes that make her smile, a little tickle on her nose that makes me laugh, too. Our laughter is becoming a constant as we approach nearer.
        Our smiles, beaming, are the only light that we need to show us where we are. There is no fear of this darkness. There is a whiteness ahead of us, a whiteness we recognize, a warmth that is unequaled even in the greatest memories I have of my childhood home. This light is a shiver. The wash of white that is contained within it is otherworldly. The laughter subsides for a minute. There is a slight nervousness, an uncaged excitement. The same feeling I can remember having waiting in line for carnival rides as a child. The memories I remember looking back on with fondness flash before me in it the glow. This light is a memory. A place I seem to have been. A place I seem to be coming back to.
        The light swarms around us like a purpose. It exposes from within it a spring like I have never known, a world that is afire with a sun that has only been spoken of in books, a sunlight I do not recognize. The flowers are unseasonable. The temperature is as pleasant as could be imagined, and the world has never been more alive.

 

 


3

        She has never lit so brightly. I must be quite nearly the same as she is looking at me with those eyes experiencing this same childlike magic. As we walk across the greenest grass, scanning the heaven around us, we follow a small stream that flows into the lake. The lake is facing a house, the palace, the cathedral of dreams.
        Her hand has lost me, and yet her touch is still there. It is all around me, swimming on my flesh like a passion before now unknown. She is bent over near a tree, the only tree that stands away from the thick foliage that, like a wall, is built around us. Her shoes are sat neatly in front of the tree. She pulls up the skirt of her dress and begins to roll away her stockings, looking at me as if to catch me watching her delicate fingers as they slowly reveal the cream of her legs. She lays the stockings, with care, atop her shoes, and removes her dress from over her head. Her undergarments are absent, and she is free of clothes. The glowing of her skin can be partly attributed to the sun's silvery light, bouncing from the lake onto everything, like it was concerned with decorating the world with its severe shine. She comes to me, and I am already naked. My clothes are nowhere to be seen, and yet I don't recall removing them.
        She begins to run toward the lake, and of course I chase after her. She is laughing uncontrollably. Her body is so different when she runs, her naked breasts surprise her with their new sensations. I catch wind of her laughter and am caught laughing at my own genitals as they find themselves free in my sprinting.
        She reaches the lake before I do, but I am quick to meet her with a kiss. My arms fold around her. She rubs into me and traps her arms inside my embrace. She is caught. I am caught. We are caught in each other.
        She faces the lake. Her foot reaches to test the water's temperature. As her toe touches the water there is a ripple that circles out and uncovers the cathedral's reflection where it previously was not reflected. She dives down into the water, and I quickly follow. We swim down to depths biologically impossible to be traveled under normal circumstances, and yet there are no limits. We could experience fathoms here. We could travel the length of countries and not once care for air.
        She comes to me with a kiss unlike any kiss I have ever experienced. That kiss awakens new dimensions in my mind as flower petals pour up from under us, swirling from the bubbles of our breathing. We look down and the flowers are coming from underneath the finely crafted door of a church. We swim to enter the doors of the cathedral and roll ourselves dry down the carpet of the cathedral's aisle, as if the whole building were lying flat on its back. As we find the front of the church, it regains its balance, and we are able to stand on our own bare feet.
        Every pew is filled with lovers wrapped in kisses. They break to applaud us, to show us their acceptance. They shower us with flowers at our feet, and all around our bodies until the flowers become like water themselves. And when the flowers have sunk below us there is revealed to us a clock. The bells within the clock ring twelve times, and we approach it. There is a door on the face of the clock. I touch the door to push it open, and then I look at her. There is a tear falling from her eye. I kiss it away, the salt painfully delicious on my tongue, and then she smiles. I push the door to enter. The people of the church reach a climax that equals a song that only true lovers can understand, a song that breathes, a song that raises and opens, a song that moves others to try and emulate its music.

        She is brushing her hair in front of the window. She is much older. Her hair has grayed, but she is still beautiful. I get up from bed to approach her. She is looking out at the lake, and then turns to me. She reaches out for me, and I see my reflection from the window. There is an older man looking back at me, a much older man. There is no doubt that it is me. My age doesn't sadden me. It is her face that hurts me. I wonder if she is happy. I don't think we laugh anymore. I want to ask her why we don't laugh anymore. She smiles at me. She understands me. She takes my hand and leads me back to bed.

        There is a time for worship in love. There is a time for paradise. There is a time for singing, and then there is a time for home, which is what we will become together. It is only now that I understand that worship and paradise are illusions that are created by the drunkenness of love. It is home where real love is made. I know that when we leave this paradise, where we will worship each other with the time we are permitted, we will live our lives simply. However, until we are led out of this cathedral we must allow our love to sing in this palace that faces the lake. This place that doesn't exist, this place that only exists in dreams, is a place I will remember with laughter, and yet it is not nearly as important as her brushing her hair at a window. It is in these moments that one truly understands god.

 

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Cathedral Lake by Paul Hina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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