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The Sea as Green As Loss (autobiographical essay)

Vlad T. Frants


��“Regular or decaf?” Julia would ask. She would ask me that same question every day and every day I would smile and reply: “I don’t drink coffee.” Every morning I’d be seated for breakfast even before a hint of golden light penetrated the clouds.
��That one summer was full of routine. Every morning I would get up, put on my light blue slippers and run out to the picnic table around the back of our cozy cottage. Julia would bring out thecereal and her thick, buttery French toast. My dad would call me in the house to help him bring out the rest of the food. I would run back another time to bring out the silverware; my hands were too small to carry everything out at once. This was routine.
��After breakfast my dad and I would race down to the dock, barely making it across without slipping. My dad would hold my hand and help me into the paddle boat, Thunder we called her. Thunder was an old one with cracked sides, broken floorboards and chipped dark green paint. The boat was of great sentimental value to my father for it had once won my dad first place in a fishing contest. Hence, we kept her. My dad promised me that one day he would teach me how to use a brush and we would paint Thunder together. That someday never came.
��My father would smile at me, his brilliant white teeth just gleaming in the early light; his smile bringing out the kindness in him. He would put one hand on my shoulder and help me row with another. This way, I would row the boat out into the center of the lake. Kuneononga Lake, she was called. Kuneononga Lake was something to marvel at. She was as green as the very trees whose silent presence I felt around me. She was as perfectly still as the very sun in the sky.
��It was close to noon and the tide had risen. I had spotted a long, black creature in the water. I remember feeling a sense of trepidation. I remember the tears of fear and then the comforting hand of my father resting on my shoulder telling me it was just a fish. I remember how I sat there, my mouth open wide in amazement and intrigue. I had never before crossed paths with a fish as large as the one I had noticed then. I felt secure and I felt relieved, and I laughed. I laughed like a child would laugh after seeing something he likes. The laugh that I laughed, my dad would never hear again.
��The tide had risen even more, and I heard the waved beating against our little boat. The clouds had covered the sky and the morning sun had disappeared into blackness, into nothingness. I stopped laughing about the fish as I felt a cool chill pass through my body. It was getting very cold.
��I heard the rumble of thunder in the background and I saw the spark of lightning near our boat. I remember my dad screaming at me to row the boat as I just looked at him blankly, hesitant to row. I remember the wave coming at us, lifting the boat into the air, my father falling over. Although I never heard the fall, the roar of thunder was almost deafening.
��That night the lightning was almost soothing. That night, this
divine-like lake stabbed an eight-year-old boy with a passion of fear and regret that stole something from him far more precious than any mortal could take. That night I thought about the paint brush my dad would never teach me how to use.






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