Lauren Davis | fiction | Please Enjoy Going Where You Are Going

    
   
Please Enjoy Going Where You Are Going



She went out onto the river and drifted south, beneath stars creating the shape of winter. She yawned, trailed her fingers in sunless water. A star fell. Georgia made a wish. By morning, she floated by stone homes and glass factories, a few marinas and one county fair, where children tittered on the top of a Ferris wheel, and below them sweethearts kissed. The air smelled of cotton candy. A clown in the trees pissed into the river.

She was just turning sleepy again when a naked man emerged swimming beside her.

Rebecca? he asked.

My name is not Rebecca, she said.

You look just like her, he said.

I don’t know what to tell you, she said.

You do not have paddles for your canoe, he said.

I am going wherever I am going, she said.

He turned in the water and looked at the county fair. Lights strobed like a heartbeat.

So sorry, he said. I must have the wrong decade. He stared at her throat. Are you sure you are not Rebecca?

I am not Rebecca, she said.

He nodded. So sorry to have bothered you. Please enjoy going where you are going, he said. He disappeared below the water.

Georgia held her fingers to her throat, touched the scar. It felt delicate, as if with just a breeze, it might rip open and bleed. It was a red mesa, a puckered mouth. She hummed and it hummed back.




Once upon a time, a girl walked home from school in a pink dress and red shoes. She swung a patent leather purse stuffed lip gloss and bread. She started to cross the Salt Creek Bridge and saw something she was not meant to see.

At first, she thought it was a dead, unclothed child. Then he opened his eyes and dove behind the rocks and shadows.

You cannot tell them about me, he said when he resurfaced. Girl, you cannot tell.

Tell who what? she asked. She liked to play dumb. It had worked for her many times, especially with boys of a certain age.

Girl, he said. I am happy here. If you tell anyone where I am, they won’t like it one lick.

My name is not girl, she said.

What’s your name then? he asked.

Wouldn’t you like to know, she said.

He laughed. Do you have anything to eat? he asked.

Yes, she said.

Then come down, he said.

She moved without grace along the mossy ridge.

Are you going to put on clothes? she asked when she sat beside him. Their toes dangled in the lazy current.

He laughed again.




Each day after school she brought an apple, a piece of bread, and a soda. He never seemed especially hungry. He ate slowly, as if time were of no consequence. Often, as the sun grew tired, she left him nibbling on the core of a Honeycrisp.

He was, for her, magic. Classrooms and recess and prayer time were nothing compared to the feel of his hand on hers. Innocent, hesitant, and warm. In him, she glimpsed something dreamlike, and it was her inability to pull it into focus that made her sure he was not of the earth, not fully.

You’re not from here, she said to him once.

He knew exactly what she meant.

No, he said.

Where are you from? she said.

Guess, he said.

I don’t know, she said.

You’ll take me there one day, he said.

A secret can hide anywhere in the body. His secret lived in her throat. She could feel it catch when she neared him. Often, she fell mute. Together they fed small fishes their crumbs, until she noticed the failing light and ran home.




When Georgia slept in the canoe, the swimming man placed seaweed and fish and raspberries beside her, then he blessed her hands. She never questioned where the food came from. She assumed the birds watched over her. Perhaps the ravens.




It was a starless sky, and she was without dreams, though she was in a deep sleep, so deep that she heard nothing, felt nothing, sensed only black. The canoe traveled steadily as the water moved towards the falls. He pulled her into the river and onto the shore, where she trembled from the cold.

Why? she asked.

He kissed her cheek. Rest, he said.

I gave you away, she said.

Be held, he said.

They came for you. I cannot be forgiven, she said.

Be warmed, he said.

He shaped a nest with pine needles and finch feathers. Together they laid.




Say your name, he said.

Georgia, she said.

No, he said. Why do you lie to me?




Once upon a time the naked boy did not greet her at the bridge, and she stumbled into the water calling for him. She splashed around like a caught trout. A spot of blood fell on her red dress. She looked up and saw him, trembling, in a tree. A dog had bitten his thigh.

You must go to the hospital, she said.

They cannot know about me, he said.

You’ll die losing that much blood, she said.

They can’t know about me, he said.

Stay there, she said.

When the dog came out of the brush, she wrestled it and trapped it in the raspberry canes. She ran to the hospital to find her aunt, the kind nurse. When they returned to the bridge, the boy was no longer in the tree. They found only a bloody trail.

Let’s follow the blood, said the girl.

The boy had spoken the truth before. When the kind nurse found him behind a meaty boulder, she shook her head in sadness, and said they must bring him to The Home. But he was fast and lithe. The boy slipped into the water, vanishing in a red bloom.





Once upon that night, a ghost visited the girl in her bedroom. It sat beside her on her daisy sheets.

Ghost, what have I done? asked the girl.

The ghost did not answer.

I’ve lost him, haven’t I? said the girl. I have driven him from his home. 

The ghost did not argue. The girl took it as a sign that she must abandon all of her memories, all of her desires, must take a new name.





On the fourth day after they had reunited, she awoke and gathered her clothes to leave. He reached for her arm.

Do not go, he said.

I betrayed you, she said.

No, he said. Let me show you something.

He placed his hand over her closed eyes. She saw a life. A thousand days swimming in circles. Traveling up and down time like it was a rickety ladder. Calling her by another name. Braiding stones into the shape of her. 





The fair at midnight was filled with the ghosts of laughter. She began to climb the Ferris wheel.

Where are you going? he asked.

I am going to steal a star for you, she said.

Stars can’t breathe in the water, he said.

Fine, she said. Will Saturn do?

One moment, he said. He clambered after her. Wherever you go, I go. Perhaps, if it’s nice, we’ll stay.







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