The Splinter Generation
voices from a nameless age • writing by and for those of us under 35
The Forest at Night
Maria Romasco-Moore
That night the moon was so bright we didn’t need a
flashlight. It fell in bars across the path, cut by the trees into thin
ghosts. By these we saw our way. We saw the path in stages, segments,
brief flashes amid the darkness.
The beach fizzled softly and the leaves fell with a sound like light
rain.
“Throw a rock in,” said Kieran.
I did.
“Another,” he said.
I threw another.
“Throw another,” he said.
I threw a third rock.
“It’s not working,” said Sloane. I always
thought that in the daylight there was something cruel about her
beauty, the angles of it. It jumped out at you like a mugger in an
alleyway, cut your heart out with a knife. It was too bright to look at
directly. You would go blind.
But in the night, with just the moon, she softened. She seemed like the
kind of girl who would maybe love you back.
“It probably just needs to be a bigger rock,” said
Kieran, “Throw a bigger rock in, Jerry.”
I looked around the sand by my feet until I found the biggest rock
there was. I hefted it up with both hands and heaved it into the water.
The splash came back and soaked my shoes.
“Damn it, Jerry, now my pants are wet.” Kieran was
backing up from the water, hitting at the bottom of his pants with his
hands as if that would make any difference.
“Sorry,” I said.
Sloane was standing farther up on the beach, a little apart from us, so
she didn’t get splashed. She had her blue windbreaker wrapped
tightly around her and she was still cradling the Gatorade bottle half
full of 7-Up and cheap vodka. Kieran walked up towards her, sand
squelching and shells crackling under his feet. He reached for the
bottle and she handed it over gingerly, as if she were passing an
infant instead of a plastic bottle with the label pulled off.
“It still didn’t work,” she said.
Kieran was chugging on the bottle like it actually was Gatorade. He
choked a little and spit onto the sand. He wiped his mouth and passed
the bottle back to Sloane, who tucked it under her windbreaker again.
“I swear to God it does, though,” he said,
“I’ve seen it. The whole damn thing lights up neon.
It’s these tiny things. These little microscopic algae
creatures. Like microbes or something.”
“I think you’re full of shit,” said
Sloane.
“No, I swear. I wouldn’t lie to you. It’s
like something out of science fiction. It glows, it really does. The
microbes light up when they get disturbed, so if you throw rocks at
them it usually works. Maybe they’re just having an off day
or some shit, I don’t know. Jason said they also do it
because of certain chemicals. Like if you piss into the water, the
chemicals will make them do it. The chemicals in human urine make them
light up.”
Sloane laughed.
“Now I know you’re full of shit.”
“I swear I’m not. I swear it to you,
that’s what he said.”
“Well you’re out of your mind if you think
I’m going to.”
“No, no, of course not. Hey, Jerry.”
I’d been staring out across the water. I could just barely
see the lights of a house on the other side and I’d been
wondering what the lives of the people who lived there were like. Were
they like us? Maybe, I thought, the lake was like a mirror and the
other shore was just a reflection of this one. Maybe standing over
there on the other shore there were mirror images of all three of us
catching rocks that came flying out of the water. Maybe there was a
mirror Kieran who owned a car and a TV and went to business school and
a mirror Sloane who was the ugliest girl in the whole world and a
mirror Jerry, too, who didn’t love her even a little bit and
didn’t need anyone or anything.
Kieran threw a rock at my head.
“Hey, stoner, get your head out of the stars and go piss in
the lake.”
I looked over at him, rubbing the place on the back of my head where
the rock had hit. It really hurt. He was standing next to Sloane close
enough that their shoulders were almost touching. I decided that what
I’d thought earlier was wrong. In the moonlight she was even
more beautiful. It hurt way worse than any rock could.
“Okay,” I said.
I started to untie my shoes.
“Leave them on,” said Kieran.
I rolled up my pant legs instead and then waded out up to my ankles in
the water. I looked back at Kieran. He had his arm slung around
Sloane’s waist.
“Go farther,” he said.
I walked until the water was up to my knees. It was freezing. On the
other side of the lake I knew the water was warm and the sand was soft.
I realized that I actually did have to go pretty badly, so I unzipped
my fly and pissed into the freezing water.
Around me, dimly at first, but then brighter, the water started to
glow. It was just like he’d said and I let out a wordless
shout of joy.
“Look,” I said, “Look!”
For a good ten feet all around where I’d sent the stream of
piss it was glowing now, green and slightly shimmering.
I zipped up my pants and turned back to the beach. In the moonlight the
trees looked like pale anorexic girls with long fingers and the figures
on the beach looked like statues. Like the kind of figurines your great
aunt keeps on doilies on her bureau. Colorless and ancient and devoid
of any meaning. Kieran had Sloane in his arms and he was kissing her. I
could see that she was still holding the Gatorade bottle. I could see
it pressed up between them.
I turned back around. The light from the house on the other shore was
still on, just like a tiny lighthouse. I started wading farther out
into the lake. I kept my eyes on that light and headed straight towards
it.
I was up to my waist when I heard a shout from the beach behind me.
“Hey, idiot, what are you doing? Come back.”
I wasn’t listening. I could hear the slight swish of the
water and the chattering of my teeth. I imagined I could hear the
murmur of the microscopic algae sending out their neon glow.
There were more shouts from the beach, but I ignored them. I could see
the house now. The light in the windows was from a big cheery fire
roaring in the fireplace. There were people gathered around it roasting
marshmallows and telling stories and laughing. They came to the windows
and waved to me. I waved back. They wanted me to come and tell stories
with them. They were saving me a place by the fire. They were saving me
some marshmallows.
I heard splashing behind me. I let my knees collapse under me so the
water would close over my head.
Someone grabbed my arm and started dragging me. They were taking me to
the other shore and when I opened my eyes I’d be sitting by
the fire and an ugly girl would hand me a marshmallow and smile.
Kieran dragged me all the way up onto the beach and then collapsed
beside me. He swore loudly, several times.
I was wet and shivering all over. Every time I moved I could feel a
hundred tiny shells cracking underneath me. I tried to stay perfectly
still, but it was hard because every couple of seconds a tremor would
run through my whole body and a few more innocent sea creatures would
be crushed.
I opened my eyes and saw Sloane standing over me. She was beautiful
even from below. I closed my eyes again and shuddered.
“What a fucking idiot,” said Kieran.
“What. A. Fucking. Idiot.”
“He must be a lot higher than we thought,” said
Sloane.
I decided to risk it and I opened one eye just a crack. Sloane had
kneeled down next to me.
“Here,” she said, and held out the Gatorade bottle.
I grabbed it and took a sip. I’d swallowed too much lake
water and I couldn’t really taste it, which was probably just
as well, but it warmed me up a little.
“I’m freezing,” said Kieran,
“Let’s just go back.”
Sloane nodded. She put her hand out like she was going to help me up,
but I shook my head. I was afraid to take her hand. Her touch, I
thought, would burn like holy water. It might cut right through me. I
rolled around on the sand a bit and somehow got myself to my hands and
knees and then just to my knees and then to my feet. I sent a silent
prayer of sorrow and apology to all the new shellfish ghosts which went
kind of like this: I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry.
Kieran had already started zigzagging unsteadily down the beach towards
the dark break in the trees which was the path. Sloane followed after
him and I followed after her.
The moon was still bright enough to show the way, and I only tripped
over branches and tree roots a few times. Sloane never tripped. Kieran
started singing as he staggered along in the lead. His song went like
this:
One forty, two forties, jug of cheap wine,
Bottle of vodka, baby be mine!
He waved his arms around and the leaves falling around us were
like laughter, or applause.
Sloane fell back a little to walk beside me.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
I wanted to tell her about the other side of the lake. About the house,
and the fireplace, and even about the marshmallows, but I was afraid
she would just think I was an idiot. So instead I shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
She shook her head.
“You’re a weird one, you know that,
Jerry.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, as I stumbled over a
rock in the path.
I love you, I wanted to say. You’re the most beautiful girl
in the whole world, and even on the other side of the lake
you’d be the most beautiful girl. Even in a mirror world
where everything is reversed. It wouldn’t even matter.
You’re way brighter than the moon, or microscopic glowing
algae. If somebody offered me a choice between all the marshmallows and
the fireplaces and friends in the whole world and you, I’d
choose you. I would, I really would.
I love you more than he does.
Surfer on Acid, Sex on the Beach
Blurred is my vision, slurred is my speech!
“We’re almost there,” said
Sloane.
“Okay,” I said.
That night the moon was so bright we didn’t need a
flashlight. It fell in bars across the path, cut by the trees into thin
ghosts. By these we saw our way. We saw the path in stages, segments,
brief flashes amid the darkness.
“Look,” I said, “Hey, look.”
“What?” Sloane asked.
I’d turned around to glance at the path behind us, to make
sure that it was still there I guess, or to cement it into my memory.
To check, maybe, if I could still see the light of that house on the
other shore. I pointed and Sloane turned too.
Creeping down the path, dimly at first but then brighter, was a faint
green glow. It spread across the dirt and the trees, and the fallen log
which Sloane had stepped nimbly over and I’d tripped on. The
leaves falling like light rain from the trees glowed.
Sloane looked at me and her eyes were wide. I knew then what I had to
do. I reached out for her hand and she made no protest when I took it.
Together the two of us stepped back down the path towards the beach.
When we reached the place where the glow was making its way across the
forest floor we stopped. The glow moved across the dirt and the twigs
and onto our damp sneakers. It crept up the legs of our jeans and
twisted itself into the fibers of my t-shirt and into the folds of
Sloane’s blue windbreaker. It wound up our necks and slid
across our faces. It tangled itself in our hair. We were glowing.
The whole forest was glowing. I wondered if the people in airplanes
were looking out their windows and wishing secretly to themselves that
they could be a part of that phosphorescent forest down below. We were
a part of it now, me and Sloane.
Kieran had stopped singing. I turned around to see if he was following
us. He looked very small and very dark and very far away.
“What’s going on?” he shouted.
“I don’t know,” shouted Sloane, and she
was laughing.
Kieran turned and ran away from the big green glow before it could
reach him. I felt a little sorry for him, because he was missing out,
but not too sorry.
It occurred to me that the glow must have spread out in circles like a
ripple. If it was reaching us here now, then it must also be reaching
the other shore. It must be reaching the other us, the mirror us.
Perhaps they were as dark as we were bright.
Perhaps they were glowing too.
