OUR SUMMERS ON
DATA LAKE
16
HOURS
That’s how long it took us to get to the lake. Dad insisted we drive through the night. Said we could sleep in the car, which we did not.
We got to the cabin by 6am the next day. The rest of us went to our rooms and crashed while Dad unloaded the car and headed for the woods with his binoculars and paints. The whole drive he talked about how he couldn’t wait to get to the lake and paint the unique wildlife there. “You won’t see anything like it anywhere else on the planet because it’s not naturally occurring,” he said.
“Something in the lake is doing it,” we all said in unison. He gave this speech every year like it was the first time we’d heard it. Grandma attributes this to the time she found him with a piece of tall grass in his mouth using it to make whistling sounds. Tall grass only grew on the shore.
Wren on Flower
by Dad
Male & Female Cardinals
by Dad
No one swims in Data Lake. The warning signs fell into the water years ago - some say the lake took them - but if you happen into any gas station on your way through town, the locals will make sure you’re fairly warned.
We didn’t need the warning, though. We had the photos of Grandma hanging by the door that lead to the dock. One of her playing on the shore in high school, and one of her receiving one of the many physical therapy sessions she’d need for the rest of her life.
After that first dip she thought her arms were her legs, and vice versa. The treatments only reset her for three days at a time.
When she was a child, the doctors said her motor function was fine. It was all mental. Later they would diagnose it as Motor Data Corruption.
There was an old canoe on the dock, a relic of the before time. It sat there still as a stone. The water hadn’t moved since Dad was little (it got thicker every year), but that boat made the dock a dizzying place to stand. The wind moved the trees, and the clouds glided by like they did anywhere else, and if you were glancing to the sky it could feel normal for a moment. But when your peripheral vision registered that the boat wasn’t in sync with the treetops you often had to steady yourself. Our brain is constantly doing secret math with the corners of our eyes and we don’t realize it forgot to carry the 2 until we’re eye-level with a blade of grass.
I spent a lot of time on that dock. There was a set of identical quadruplets from the family who had the next cabin. They’d sit in the boat, and I’d sit on the dock and we’d laugh for hours into night.
It was a couple of summers before I realized I was the only one who could see them. I finally got around to developing some old rolls of film and wondered why they weren’t in any of the photos. I drew a picture of them to assuage Mom’s concerns, but it only served to revoke my access to the dock.
I haven’t taken my kids to Data Lake. It’s too far gone now. But Dad, ever the armchair ecologist, snuck a few flower clippings home on that last trip before I moved out. Mom protested when she found out he’d planted them in the field behind our house, but he says she’s grown to love them so much he can hardly get her to come back inside.
CREDITS
ORIGINAL STORY & WEBSITE
Charlie Trotter
PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS
Charlie Trotter + Unsplash
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