There was no moon, but we could still see each others’ pale nakedness as vibrantly as our own. The paleness of our skin, so tan in the noonday sun, now as creamy as porcelain in contrast to the black sky.
Our feet tentatively tested the water one by one, each of us subduing shivers from the fall chill of the lake. No one remembers who was the first, but we all submerged ourselves until the surface of the lake was as perfect as glass. Then all at once five trails of bubbles could be seen making their way to the very middle of the dark stain in the middle of the forest.
After being silent all our lives we could finally let go and be here, in the water just being. In turn we surrendered the pretentiousness of actual swimming until all of us lay floating on our backs facing the sky.
No words were spoken, but we all saw the same stars, and with pointed fingers rising out of the stillness we showed each other constellations we’d come to admire.
Silently we shared these intimacies with each other, observing the same burning balls of gas by now probably extinguished but last fragments of their lives still reaching out to us here on earth.
This was our vibrant dance, all together in unison we left as suddenly as we had come.
And when the beach was left empty all that there was to speak of our existence were our footprints in the sand. The impermanence of this landmark disappeared as soundlessly as it was created, with waves lapping gently against the sands, rearranging them into tiny ripples.
No one saw us come or go. Years later we forgot we had ever been, and the stars we had watched with reverence winked out one by one, their bright existence vanishing anonymously from the giant black canvas called the sky.
