Avery tells us that the island plopped in the center of the large lake is called Gnome Island by residents due to the yearly placement of garden gnomes along its rocky shores. They row the four of us—them, Zain, Emrys and myself—out to it on a Sunday afternoon and halt everything to park the boat on the island upon glimpsing a fallen, moss-caked guardian. We watch as Avery takes gentle care in righting it, then ventures along the edge looking for other gnomes to be placed upright as we sit on a rock that slopes gently into the water; see their dedication in restoring the scene from summer. It’s late September, so the early-set sun starts to go down behind them slowly, casting them in solemn silhouette.

Technically, we’re not supposed to be here. Sure, Avery’s family has a small cottage on the lake, but it’s really only meant to be visited during the summer months and with their family around. The lake, too, is state property—the law says you’re not allowed to boat on it, but that rule isn’t enforced enough to stop people from doing so. We break all the rules anyway because why the hell not; it’s a beautiful day and we were in the area for the Renaissance Faire, high spirits urging us to venture into a little silly business when Avery had realized just how close the faire and the cottage were. I still had most of the gas in the tank of my car, having filled it up that morning, so I didn’t mind a detour. Zain and Emrys were happy to be along for the ride. Avery gave me the address, I drove, we parked, got changed out of our fancy getups and got in a boat. I sit at the bow, facing Avery’s back, distantly listening to them explain their childhood here, pointing out little landmarks where memory imbues itself into every stone; we make impromptu plans to visit some of those locations after saying hi to the gnomes. As we make our way out to Gnome Island, shoes covered in mud, I look down into the crystalline water and watch the ropes of algae sway as the boat cuts through.

The lake we do a little illegal rowing on is massive, a crater of water surrounded by the edge of the mountain range that forms upstate New York, and Gnome Island is the middle point of it all. It takes Avery a solid ten minutes of rowing to get to our destination. The landscape curves and curls around it to the point where, when me, Emrys and Zain are sitting on that slope, Avery farther down looking for more gnomes, I laugh loud enough it echoes for several seconds. Zain asks me, knowing I was a vocalist for a long time, to sing the highest note I can. It rings out in the warm autumn air, bouncing between earlobes, and when I’m done I go back to watching Avery again. They’re tense, seemingly lost in their own little world, holding the charm they had kept around their neck in their hands, crouched as if they were praying. Each breath and minute movement feels intentional and personal, so I look away and let them have their moment, choosing to pick wildflowers and take pictures in the meantime, trying and failing to wash off the mud caked onto my shoes with the gently lapping water. 

Suddenly, they shoot straight up, look off into the distance, and throw the charm as hard as they can. It hits the water with a splash and sinks to the bottom, out of sight. Without a sound, Avery walks back, almost straggling, over to the sloping rock; takes a seat next to me with a hollow thunk, their eyes distant as I keep them in my peripheral. There is a wave of comfort that washes over the scene as, after Emrys asks if they’re okay, they say it feels like they just lost a part of their soul. Later, they’ll regret throwing it in the lake—it would’ve been better, they say, to let it lie in a place where they could come back to it if they needed to. Part of me liked the finality of their action—letting the past stay in the past, stepping into the person you want to be—but I don’t tell them any of that. I just hug them, gaze focused on the sprawling lake at our feet.

—————

I keep writing about lakes. Not fantasy lakes, but real lakes that have passed over my field of view, and I keep writing about them as if they are pocket worlds outside of time and immune to consequence. For the past few months, I have been going back to the scenes from my childhood that remind me of the idyllic nature of my otherwise wild upbringing; the moments where I could exist without fault or blame, breathe out and not have to think about breathing in again. I could not tell you why, beyond the fact that this lake brought me back to the lake of my early years. Even before the adventure to Gnome Island, I was writing about that small lake I grew up across from. I feel perpetually stuck in the past; only the view of a new lake could drag me back to the present, just in time for a little self reflection in both mental and physical form. 

It’s weird; I’ve never been one for the kind of extended vulnerability that makes up creative nonfiction. Every time I’ve tried to write in this style I’ve hated it. I don’t know if I’ve hated writing this. 

Give context. Add a little bit more about how I’m feeling in the moment. Try to examine Avery as a character more, with the throwing of the charm in the lake. What did that charm, glued to a necklace and hung around their neck for years, mean to them beyond being a token of their faith? How did they feel when they said they “lost a part of their soul”? What was the tone in their voice? 

Shouldn’t I know this? How do I get in that kid’s head? How do I understand what others are thinking?

We’ll figure that out later. Maybe just give the rest of the story for now. 

But what is this story even about?

—————

Eventually, we all get up and walk along the slightly-treacherous rocky shoreline, hopping over stones and getting even more mud on our shoes. It might have rained a few days before. I don’t remember—all Avery had said was that the water level was lower than they know it to be; it had made getting the boat (and us) into the water harder than it should have been. All this to say that there was mud, and the shoreline was pretty small; it’s not long before we’re back in the boat, looking for an alternate place to park it and explore more of Gnome Island. It doesn’t take long. Avery knows every place where someone could make it to shore here.

Our venture further inland immediately leads our party to an old, sun-bleached, half-pristine deer skeleton lying in a pile. First steps onto soft dirt are met with perfect vertebrae of the spine, whole femurs, and broken-off pieces of rib strewn about and picked clean from years of bird feedings or decomposition. There are no antlers; based on that and the size of the bones, Avery says it must have been young. It is the only skeleton in the area, alone on a small island in the middle of a lake. It swam here just to die, however long ago that was, away from any family it had. I stare into empty eye sockets and try not to think about what that would have looked like. Everyone else looks away.

In the remains, we find most of the skull and both halves of the bottom jaw; Avery and I try to piece it back together with careful precision, finding the missing piece of the top jaw amidst the ankle joints. It’s an art I am not used to, but Avery is, so I let them do the majority of the work while I hum a tune and look for any stray teeth that might be scattered about, slotting them into the divots where they once sat. There’s a discussion about whether or not we take any of the bones home. When we’re done, our work nearly perfect, we set it—and whatever else we picked up—in the center of the remains and go farther into the island— it feels better to take no mementos than desecrate the long dead. 

We clear a path by pushing stay branches and vines out of the way for each other, directing any questions we have about the scenery to Avery. They don’t have the answers for many of them; surprisingly, they don’t know where the broken-down trellis on the path is from. Still, they bring us further in, to where there was a fairy circle the last time they were here, mushrooms springing up in a ring. Instead, we find a stone bench to sit on and catch our breath. I hum the tune about the deer skull again, even though it is out of our field of view. There is a lull in the soft, warm, comforting energy that surrounds and lifts us up; reality beginning to creep in as silence settles in the air. We stay there for longer than I think we should have. I keep thinking about that damned skeleton.

—————

Another through line: spirituality. How does this connect to the other moments of the day? What about the protection pendant I had bought earlier, can I tie that in somehow? What about the month I spent previous fearful of bad omens falling upon me and those I love? Why does the deer feel so encompassing, larger than the island, larger than the lake, larger than the entire concept of the day? Why did it feel like some sort of god had followed us into the car and guided us there? There’s a metaphor in all of this, somewhere amongst those bones we left behind.

The further time strays from that Sunday afternoon, the harder I find it to write about. There’s a number of reasons for this. Memory is a factor of course—time loves to steal details from the mind—but more crucial is the way the days since have stained what could have been a perfect photograph of a beautiful friendship; the dynamics at play then are no longer the dynamics at play now. September turned into October and October turned into a desperate baby deer trying to swim to shore, treading water into November, worrying about what elements of our bodies and minds will drag us under. All four of us are still friends; we hang out and we talk and we get drunk and we share secrets and we get a little too close to each other. That doesn’t stop the deer from collapsing into the mud, however, and now every time I look at a name on a page for too long I have to fight the impulse to throw the whole project away. Maybe the problem is that this time, the deer is staring at me with pleading eyes, begging me to kill it.

Would that be satisfying enough?

I first started this story as vignettes to immortalize a time where I thought nothing could go wrong, where it felt strange for things to be going as well as they did. A few weeks ago I would look upon those draft chunks and smile fondly at the memories it brought back; sigh in relief that I had been able to have one good day after a string of pretty terrible ones. Now I look at the drafts and—well, I already explained that part. Writing is sometimes the most miserable action because it reminds you of how much effort you put into things that eventually stop mattering. It makes you face the way time shifts and changes and warps things in ways that once felt so impossible. It makes you remember that there is always another foot waiting to drop, just out of your peripheral, that can’t be predicted. And yet we keep doing it, and I just keep putting words on this page.

This isn’t what this story is about, though. It’s about the past, not the present, so I think I’ll go back there, even though it’s falling further away from me with every second that passes.

—————

So we leave Gnome Island. Cross through the bushes and brambles that make up the greenery; try not to get caught on any thorny vines that may cover our path. See the deer skeleton again, placed almost in ritualistic fashion, and reaffirm our decision to let the dead stay where they lie. Then we’re back in the boat and pushing away from the shore.

Gnome Island was one stop of three that Avery wanted to make—there was an excitement and whimsy in their voice I hadn’t heard before as they explained all the places where memories had taken shape over many summers. The next stop is what’s also being called a fairy circle, and while my criteria for what counts as one is specific, I don’t argue with the person who knows the place better than I do. It’s boulders in a ring on top of a hill, and we’re not supposed to be here, either, this time because if we’re not careful we’re trespassing on private property. Sitting on one of the rocks that surrounds the main circle of boulders, we watch the sun filter through the sparse birch trees and talk about the fantasy worlds we had made for each other. I had started to lose focus by this point; letting reality slip away in the warmth of the air and the people around me.

The energy lulls with the setting sun, and by the time we’re going to leave the boulders, the third stop is looking less appealing to our tired eyes. We just end up rowing back to the house with sprits still high, despite Emrys falling in the lake while trying to get back in the boat—her boots are filled with water, but she’s still smiling softly, a tiredness creeping into her eyes. I’m once again watching Avery row us across the water, slower this time, fifteen minutes of labor before we finally reach that muddy shore. When we finally become grounded, boat back in the shed, we’re quick to realize just how hungry we are. We’d seen a pizza place on the way up, one that Avery had mentioned always wanting to go to, so why not go there and let a dream come true?

As it turns out, said pizza place of their childhood dreams is a for sale family owned joint on the side of a major highway, boasting a strange 80’s action movie theme the inside doesn’t really commit to. When we enter, no one but a couple teenagers running the register are there, and no one says anything about the giant red sign out front—why would they in front of customers? We don’t make comment of it either, as the only customers around, we just order a whole pizza and chat about anything and everything, backed by the tinny sound of music coming out of old mounted televisions. 

While we’re eating, I can’t help but slip away and think back to the last time I visited a for-sale eatery: a now closed diner just outside Doylestown, Pennsylvania, days before they shut their doors. Similarly to the pizza joint, no one on the staff was visibly upset—they had a job to do; they were all smiles—but the air was thick with a somber tension that I had to wade through as I made my leave. I wonder if that same atmosphere will engulf the pizza place days before its closure, the staff still smiling as they make their final order.

—————

Is this what this story is about? Beating a dead horse—a dead deer? Things falling apart? The end of beautiful moments? I’m not sure anymore. Clearly, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s about the relationship between Avery and I—I care about Emrys and Zain, but they play secondary roles here. They are set dressing for the things left unsaid: Avery in the front seat of my car, the two of them in the back. Them watching me text Avery over slices of pizza. Us getting closer, platonically, in ways both past and present me did not think possible, with Emrys and Zain watching from the wings. I have spent every moment since Gnome Island—and a couple moments beyond it—waiting for Avery to realize that this whole thing needs to be shut down, fast, before I get too attached. For them to close the shop with a smile, like people have in the past, and let the dead deer that is my soul rest in the foliage. It’s not fair to either of us for me to parade around with one half of a skull.

…And yet, Avery reads the unfinished drafts and argues that we should’ve brought the bones with us. They say there’s nothing wrong with the preservation of a beautiful thing, something frail but pristine; nothing wrong with remembrance or a morbid reminder to move on. Avery isn’t thinking about the way the deer died, how it must have felt to have lungs fill with lake water, algae, dirt and burn with the pressure of a fullness that shouldn’t be there. I am. I know the dying, not the dead, and want to stop the pain that is pushing against every organ every time I look them in the eyes. And yet, they know how to make something so wonderful out of the aftermath. They will let me stay, and keep working until it doesn’t hurt anymore.

God, this feels so stupid. 

I still don’t know what was going through their head that day. I still feel like I should. 

—————

On the way home, I turn off the GPS too early and miss an exit, effectively getting us a little lost. Lucky for me, no one minds as I reroute, adding an extra half hour to the trip. We spend it listening to music and talking about anything and everything, the same way we’ve spent the last 45 minutes in the car. As sound blasts from my car’s speakers, everyone joins in on song after song, time moving slower as the moments are held close to the chest and savored. It is things like these that are loved beyond everything else: doing stupid shit and getting lost with friends. The post drive consensus is we should do this again sometime, and I think I agree.

Enough pictures were taken that day to show a common theme through them: all of us are smiling wider than we ever have. This is the happiest I have looked in at least a few years, if not longer; everyone else has enough raise in their cheekbones and a bright enough glint in their eyes to express pure joy. For the first time in forever, I can recognize myself in frame; I feel like a real person who lived a life. Brilliant, beautiful, light, free. My only retrospective is: oh lord, how did I manage this?