Skipping Stones

Once in a while, he would wake up at night, walk to the lake nearby, and begin skipping stones.

One.
One, two.
One, two, three.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, five.
One, two.

Sometimes, the rocks would skip a count or won’t go further than four skips, no matter how hard he tried.

Lying in bed, unable to sleep, everything itched. Each time he scratched an itch, another appeared, like a game of whack-a-mole. He sighed deeply, got up, and walked toward the lake. It was night, but the moon’s light was bright. Perhaps it was the pulling of the moon that made his skin itch, he thought. At his usual spot, he began skipping stones again, finding some old ones in the pocket of his jacket.

One, two.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four, figure.

His counting was interrupted by a figure in the distance, standing on the small islet across the lake. A woman. From this far, he couldn’t make out her small movements—the subtle gestures that would distinguish love from friendship. She stood still, like a scarecrow, but she wasn’t scary. The only movement was her hair flickering in the moonlight.

Then the figure bent down, and a rhythmic dancing light moved toward him. A stone, he thought. But it was far too distant to reach him.

He reached into his pocket again, grabbing another stone, and began skipping it toward the dancing light on the water. He counted: six skips, four more to go. Four more skips to the islet. Four more to the woman.

The days that followed, the woman appeared more frequently across the lake. One night, the stone reached ten skips—the first time ever. He watched as the woman stepped aside. That night, he tried again, but never reached ten skips.

During the day, at home, he began engraving the stones—simple triangles, circles, and squares. He used a kitchen knife, which dulled quickly. The stones began to reach a number of ten skips more often, making it across the lake, reaching the woman. But many of the engraved stones sank into the blackness of the lake, unseen by anyone except the fish. To them, the stones were just part of their surrounding material—useless. But he didn’t mind. As long as a few made it to her, that was enough. Even if it was only one in a thousand.

That night, as he lay awake, his skin itched. He scratched furiously, until the itchy parts of his body turned red, like glowing islets on a sea of flesh. The wrinkles in his skin, like the subtle movements of water. On his chest, on the islets of his skin, he saw her standing. Now he could see her clearly.

He woke up feeling sad. He knew she was beautiful, but when he thought about her face—like in the dream—there was no face. Still, the imprint of her beauty remained in the sensations of his body. The dream hadn’t left an image but it left a longing for a beauty he saw but only his body remembered.

That evening, he sent over his engraved stones—squares, triangles, and circles. A stone danced toward him, but then, a sharp pain in his shin, a silent grunt. His shin bled. He picked up the stone—triangles, circles, and squares engraved on it, like his, but sharper and different in size.

The next day, he put his bread in the toaster and let it burn, just like the day before. This time, not by accident. The whole day he walked backwards, tripping over trash and getting yelled at by strangers because he was bumping into them. He ate the same dinner as yesterday and, just like the day before he went to the supermarket to buy food to make a pasta, yesterday he forgot the spinach and when walking backwards to the store he tried to forget the spinach, but he couldn’t. Instead of forgetting by chance, he purposely did not take it with him only to come back home and walk back to the store immediately again. After dinner, he locked all the doors and put the cats outside, determined they wouldn’t steal his dreams.

That night, he shifts and turns,

Whispers and worms, itches and burns.

When he wakes in the morning he tries to remember the dreams from the night but there is nothing. At breakfast, he carves more stones, just like at dinner. He can’t sleep, but he’s glad he can’t—because the woman will likely be there. He reaches the lake, but to his surprise, there’s no woman. He starts skipping stones, but doesn’t get past four skips.

He sighs, then sits down on the ground, staring over the lake. The wrinkles of his stones dissolve on the water. Now, the lake is completely still—no longer a lake, but merely a mirror of the sky.