Elephants: Chapter 3 - Silver

Maria frowned slightly as she stirred the dead water with a driftwood branch. It wasn’t murky, but the surface was stale, and gave off a vaguely unpleasant smell. She cast the stick to the side and tapped a pencil, caught between her fingers, on a large notebook. It made a sharp, hollow kind of sound. She imagined it echoing across the water like tolling bells that left ringing impressions in your ear even when they stopped. Her pencil met the paper, and, like sand under water, time started to blur.

***

“I don’t see why you insist on coming here all the time. Like, it’s not even pretty.”

Maria started with a small jerk of her head, then threw a half-hearted glare at the owner of the remark, and turned back to her book and the still water.

It looked silvery and flat, like mercury.

“Wow, it must have taken you this whole morning to think of such an utterly profound and fantastically witty response.”

“Car,-”

“I mean, isn’t our repartee just delightfully wonderful?”

“Michael.” She didn’t look back this time, but he deflated immediately, almost visibly so.

“Okay, fine. What’re you doing that so incredibly urgent? And don’t call me Michael.”

“It’s not urgent. I was drawing, Carmichael.”

He flopped, knees first, into the ground beside her chair, leaning so that he fell onto his back. “Don’t call me that either. And don’t you have, like, 50 sketches of this exact same thing by now? And they’re all with pencil. Not even something exciting, like crayon. Or sparkles. You should add sparkles. Water sparkles on sunny days, right?”

She sighed through her nose, keeping her eyes on the lake. The sketchbook shut with a snap, and the pencil was tucked back into her sleeve. “You want to know why I keep coming back here? I’m trying to get the perfect picture. Look at the water. Describe it for me. One word.”

“Quicksilver.”

“Exactly. It’s too thick, too opaque. The water’s too still.” Her eyes had unfocused a bit, and her hands started to gesture towards the water, her mouth in a thin line.

“Stagnant.”

Her eyes were completely closed now, and her palms motioned fluidly, painting the scene for him with flying fingers and sheer will. “I want something… picture perfect. The ones you see when the sky is really a really clear and deep blue, and the water looks like a million cool crystals.”

“Aha! Sparkles!”

“…Sure. Like something out of a movie, except even more spectacularly blinding.”

He paused before he spoke, chewing his idea slowly before swallowing thoughtfully. “You know what I think? I think your perfect picture is closer than you can imagine.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, like butter before the fridge, malleable and velvety.

***

“Hey, Car? Can you do a favour for me?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“I’m only asking because I know you’re free next Saturday, and-”

“Let me guess, you want me to fill in for whatever duty you’ve contemplated faithfully completing, but aren’t doing because you’re shirking it for some other, infinitely more important matter.” He didn’t turn his head, because better her icy glare bore into the back of his head than his burn his eyes. Despite himself, he smiled a little.

“Lina wanted me to help out with one of her friends. Said it would count as volunteering, except all I have to do is deliver groceries or mail once in a while. Disabled,” at this, her fingers dragged through the air to hook the word, “apparently. Didn’t tell me what with, but I guess that’s why he needs deliveries and all.”

“I’m not going grocery shopping with you, right? I did that once, and it was a nightmare, absolutely, terribly, insurmountably-”

“Relax! No shopping-”

“But what about-”

“Or physical labour. No, uh, Lina just wants me to meet him before I start working – or, helping him with stuff. So he knows who I am.” Her chin dropped onto the heel of her hand, and she looked across the water.

“Ohhhh. I see. Kay, next Saturday-”

“By the way, you have exactly two minutes and thirty-one seconds until your Lit class.”

“What!? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He ripped himself up off the floor, jumping into a sprint. The soles of his shoes slapped sharply on asphalt, rhythmically punctuating his shout. “Call me with the time and place! Tell Lina I said hi!"

Maria let her waving arm fall back to her side. She picked up her notebook and looked at her morning’s work. Quicksilver, she thought, was a perfect name for the fluid lines and irregular, contrasting shadows. It reminded her of small silver bells echoing across still water, their tolling leaving displaced ringing in her ears even when they stopped…