The Death of Narcissus
By William Doreski
At the bend in the river where thirty years ago my father and I fished for bluegills and perch, five people --three women, two men-- bathe naked in the groping stream. One woman steps from the water and greets me by name. Lifting my eyes to her face, I remember how at sixteen I desperately wanted to see her like this; but now she's rumpled and scarred and more innocent, unaware of how cruelly puberty has forever distinguished us.
That moment of loss is over, and now her nakedness is casual, devoid of threat or passion. We sit together on the sand and reminisce. Her body's tough as the fist of an angry man. Once a glimpse of it would've felled me where I stood, but now the limpid September light reminds us both that what we hoarded from each other was only the coolest of facts, poor passing things.
The others slouch from the iron current and stand there dripping. Three others I know equally well, two men, one woman, the other woman a stranger. "My sister," one old friend explains. Aging nudists, sun-rumpled and shameless, their display of flesh suggests how expendable it is, how Emersonian is nature.
The river churns along in black unwieldy depths. The changing trees lean over it like mourners over a casket. Who can tame such wholesale representation?
My friends invite me to join them and reveal my entire self to the sun, but I politely leave them drying on the beach. I'm awed by their utter exposure, but prefer to reserve my excess of flesh and let my old friends remember me as someone who refused the chance to face his own reflection and drown.
- - -
William Doreski is editing a series of cat autobiographies in hopes of generating a best seller to support his favorite shelter. He lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a corrupt and evil small town dedicated to deceiving tourists.
By William Doreski
At the bend in the river where thirty years ago my father and I fished for bluegills and perch, five people --three women, two men-- bathe naked in the groping stream. One woman steps from the water and greets me by name. Lifting my eyes to her face, I remember how at sixteen I desperately wanted to see her like this; but now she's rumpled and scarred and more innocent, unaware of how cruelly puberty has forever distinguished us.
That moment of loss is over, and now her nakedness is casual, devoid of threat or passion. We sit together on the sand and reminisce. Her body's tough as the fist of an angry man. Once a glimpse of it would've felled me where I stood, but now the limpid September light reminds us both that what we hoarded from each other was only the coolest of facts, poor passing things.
The others slouch from the iron current and stand there dripping. Three others I know equally well, two men, one woman, the other woman a stranger. "My sister," one old friend explains. Aging nudists, sun-rumpled and shameless, their display of flesh suggests how expendable it is, how Emersonian is nature.
The river churns along in black unwieldy depths. The changing trees lean over it like mourners over a casket. Who can tame such wholesale representation?
My friends invite me to join them and reveal my entire self to the sun, but I politely leave them drying on the beach. I'm awed by their utter exposure, but prefer to reserve my excess of flesh and let my old friends remember me as someone who refused the chance to face his own reflection and drown.
- - -
William Doreski is editing a series of cat autobiographies in hopes of generating a best seller to support his favorite shelter. He lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a corrupt and evil small town dedicated to deceiving tourists.
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