Moon Lake
My name is Christian Zülher. I work as a sales representative for a German book publishing company. My schedule had me travel to this remote village in order to sell books to the local library. Needless to say that the business won’t be floroushing for our company thanks to this trip, indeed the mayor left me with the impression that providing his village with books and knowledge wasn’t his top priority. Exhausted after such a demanding trip and negociations, I had dinner in the hotel I was staying the night. The hotel was a classic one, one of those you find everywhere on the Czech countryside. It was clean and the food was tasteful, but a traveling salesman gets used to eating the nicest dishes.
Here I am, back in my hotel room after having dinner. I poured myself a glass of water and walked onto the balcony. The weather was fair in May and a soft breeze started blowing gently, conveying the scent of distant night flowers. I was wearing a grey woolen sweater over a white linen shirt floating to the rythm the delicate wind. While refreshing myself with a second glass of water, my attention was attracted to the forest that was spreading on the hills over the whole landscape that could be seen from the balcony. The sun had set behind the trees, at that time of the day, a blue light was glowing where the sun had set. It crossed my mind as to what was behind those tall dark trees.
That is when I remembered the words from the mayor who told me about a legend that had been passed over countless generations among the villagers. This legend claimed that, long before, there existed a god that lived in a nearby lake, the Moon Lake. It is said that, if you were lucky enough, you could see a dragon ermerge from the fathomless lake during full moon nights. I first didn’t pay attention to this ridiculous tale that the mayor surely tried to spread in order to attract visitors to the village. However, I had already eaten dinner and didn’t feel like staying in my room. Why not go out for a night stroll by such a pleasant weather? I resolved to go down the hotel and walk the path to the dark trees that caught my eyes.
The path leading to the forest was not very wide but it allowed for a single person to walk comfortably. While going uphill, night time gradually took place and the full moon appeared right in the direction of the path. I rapidly reached the entrance to the forest. The same path extended from the entrance through the forest. I kept walking quietly. It was dark, I passed by white halos which were distributed randomly when the coverage of tree branches allowed for the moon to illuminate areas on the ground. After walking for a long time, I saw the exit from the forest. Before my eyes stood a peaceful lake. The shape of the lake was elliptical and I was standing at one of the lake’s end. Trees from the same forest I just walked accross were surrounding the lake everywhere but at the opposite’s end. The moon was hanging particularily low tonight, maybe was it because the geographical place were somewhat special. And so it almost looked like the giant pale moon was hanging before me, at the lake’s opposite end. Half of it stood above the water and the other half was its reflection, whose image was was interfered by gentle waves from time to time.
I walked a few steps towards the lake and took a look to see if what was at the bottom of it. However, it was too dark to see so I could only guess that the lake was deep enough. It was surely deep enough for people to jump in. That is what I did in the past with a friend of mine in another lake while we were travelling abroad together. The scenery that appeared before my eyes made me remember this similar night, when she and I decided to jump into a lake, thinking that our love was enough. Why wouldn’t our love be enough? See, the proof of its strengh is materialized in the form of this auspicious moon. Her moonlit face was smiling at me as we both sank into the cold water surrounded by infinite darkness…
Aimlessly following the moon presence, I was wandering beside the shore of the lake, trying to go the lake’s other end. It felt that a whole lifetime had past as I was lost in these unreasonable thoughts. I didn’t know what time it was nor how much time I had been dreaming by the lake. I was suddendly woken up from my dreams by a loud sound of waterfall, which made no sense as there was no such waterfall nearby. When I took a look in the direction of the noise, I saw a giant snake right at the center of the lake. At least 10 meters long, the snake was standing still vertically while looking at the pale moon. Its eyes were large and black but calm, similar to black onixes. It stood there gazing at the moon, as if captivated by the luminescent celestial body. I had a sudden urge to get to know the heavenly creature that appeared before me.