There was a bottomless lake not far from where I grew up. It was where my parents’ generation went to have fun, and mine too, until they opened up the gravel pits closer to my house. Nowadays, there are other things to do. There are malls and stuff.

There was a high slide at the lake. A high tower with a slide leading straight down into the lake. I never went down it. I was a fraidy cat. Now that slide no longer stands, felled by liability laws, I guess. Instead, they may have a fancy fiberglass one spiralling around. But I don’t know this, I haven’t been there in years.

I went swimming there one summer when I was in college. I packed my pocket watch in a baggy so it wouldn’t get wet. I needed to know the time so I wouldn’t be late for my swing shift job at the cannery. The watch got wet anyway, and stopped, so I left way early just in case.

My brother let me try out his scuba stuff there one summer. Visibility was zero, the water was very muddy at the edge. I put on the diving mask and the tank and started breathing and stepped into deeper water and gradually sank and that, in combination with the lake being bottomless, freaked me out so I got back out of the water.

A diving platform was anchored 50 yards or so out into the lake. Kids swam out there and sunned themselves and jumped off. Laughter, water drops, sparkle, sun, skin. I’ve always been a good swimmer so I could swim out there easily, but I never did because I didn’t know the other kids. There was grass on the shore and I had a big towel.

About thirty big deer were standing around in a field right next to the freeway the other day. Several husky bucks with velvety antlers. A bunch of does. The evening light was clear and bright and the woods behind them and the grass in the field were this bright, fresh green. I slowed down to look at them. I wanted to strip naked and frolic with them, but that would have been a mistake on several levels.

I am standing on this diving platform. I am wearing heavy, steel-toed logging boots and a heavy coat and clothes. I got here by climbing down a ladder but now it’s missing its rungs and I can’t climb back up and were I to swim I would sink because of the boots and clothes. This is this dream I had a while back that won’t leave me. The dominant feeling is one of being fuxxored.

The lake is bottomless. Also, in the dream, it’s the ocean. And the boots are heavy, heavy as deep-sea diver boots. This is where the dream ends. But if I continue it this is what I do: take off the boots. Fold my clothes in a neat pile. Dive in naked. I’m a good swimmer, I just forgot for a second.