It just did is what Girl told her. The lake, it dried up and the dirt and weeds rose up to take its place.
And the fish? Him asked. Where did all the fish go? was what Him said this to all of this. And when he said what he said a bird, it was blue, it flew down, out of the blue of the sky, as if to say, to what Him had just said, My old man, he was a fish.
He was a boy, the truth is, is what Girl then just said, and she did not mean the bird that had dived from the sky. He was just a boy, she went on, but that was all a long time back when he was just a boy who walked out in the lake and he did not come back.
Why don’t they call it, You said he’d like this to know, the dead man’s trail and not the dead boy’s?
What Girl said to this was this: that it’s not called the dead boy’s trail where this boy walked and this is why: that the dead boy’s ghost has all grown up now to be a dead old man with long white hair that sticks out on his old man head and on his face.
That ghost of an old man, Girl then said, he is the one who haunts this here trail that we’re on.
At night, she went on, in a voice like a bell whose sound you can’t help but turn to try to see it, if you stand here real still, you can hear his feet walk on this dirt that used to be, way back when, the mud that was the floor of a lake.
What you just said, Jane said back to this, is what it is how God looks, Jane said. This girl, Jane said, thinks God is a ghost.
God is a ghost, Girl said this to this. He lives in the trees. He’s the sound a tree makes when the wind blows to let us know look up and then like this you will see.
You can’t see the wind, Jane said to all of this.
See, Girl said. Look up.
And when she did, yes, the wind made the trees shake and the leafs that fell to the dirt at their boy and girl feet, these leaves, each one, each leaf took the shape of a fish.
The boat that Girl took them to, the boat that she said was the house that she lived in, it looked like a boat that had sunk. This boat in these woods that looked like it had sunk, it had a hole in its side so big you could walk through it, and so walk through it and in it, this big hole in its side, was what Girl did when she came up to it.
In it, this boat, there was a wood chair to rock back in and some rope that hung from its back and a steel pail for you to spit in but that was it that was in this boat. Jane sat down in the chair and rocked back and forth in it and asked Girl if the pail was for her to piss in. Girl did not say a word to this, but when Him asked what was the rope for Girl turned and she told him it was a rope to hang all of her dreams from.
Last night I had a dream, Him said to this. I dreamed, Him said, that I was a fish.
A fish, Jane said from the chair where she rocked. In a town with no lake or pond for a fish to live in.
What’s that mean? You said. To be a fish in a dream in a town with no lake or pond in it?
What it means, Jane said, is that what you want is to be in a town that is not the place where you live.
It means, Girl said, to all of this, that you dreamed you were a fish. That is it.
If I was a fish, Jane said. I’d not want to be here in a boat. A fish in a boat, Jane made it a point for her to make, is a fish that is soon to be dead.
Is soon to be dead such a bad thing to be?
Him and You and the girl named Jane all looked at Girl who was the one to say this.
It is, Jane said, if you want to grow up to be more than just a boy or a girl.
But what if what you want is to be a boy or a girl who does not grow up to be old?
Jane stood up from where she sat in Girl’s chair. Who would want that? was what she then said to this.
Girl raised up her hand to say that she would want that. And then the hands of Him and You said and did the same.
Jane’s hands stayed where they were, hung down like hooks by the sides of her young girl legs. The light hairs there raised up as if to reach out to be touched, to be felt, to be smoothed back down.
I have to get back home now, Jane now said.
Since when? Him then said.
Since you know when is when, Jane said.
Don’t you mean You Know Who?
No, Jane said. I said you know when, not you know who.
Who, Girl said then, is You Know Who? You is who, You said.
What?
You are who, you do, said Jane. You look like this You Know Who. That is who you do.
Says who?
Says me.
And you are who?
I am Jane is who.
Jane who?
I am Jane who wants to be more than just a girl is who.
Girl looked at this Jane who said that she was a girl who wants to be more than just a girl.
Girl shook her girl head at this girl whose name she said was Jane.
What Jane said to this is what a rock might say when a rock looks up to see a tree.
But how?
And then:
Why you?
And in the sky a bird flew through the too blue blue and it too, like the sky that it was blue like, it cawed: who, who, who.
Do not ask what kind of blue the sky was.
The sky was blue.
The sky was blue.
But still you do ask.
And so I’ll tell you.
The sky was sky blue.
The sky that was blue was a sea.
See the sky.
That’s what the bird says when it caws that sound and that word: who, who, who.
Jane is who.
Him is who.
You is who.
And Girl?
Girl is Girl is who.
And You Know Who?
You Know Who is just a girl who looked just like the girl who is known to us all as Girl.
Where is she now, this You Know Who?
Who knows.
Does You Know Who know where it is that she is or where it is she has been?
Who knows.
So where to now?
Or: where do we go from here?
You and Him and the girl named Jane will go, they will get took, to where it is that Girl will with her take them.
Let’s go, Girl said.
She turned, this girl.
She walked.
They watched her back.
Then they got back on their bikes.
Their bikes are blue.
Jane got too on the back of You’s bike.
They biked.
Him and You moved the wheels with their feet.
The wheels spun, round and round.
Round and round these four wheels go. They went.
Watch them as they go, as they went: these two boys on their bikes.
Down that road that was made out of dirt.
Up a hill they climbed and climbed.
At the top they took a look.
This was what they saw.
Trees, the woods, dirt where there once used to be a creek.
A sky that was the blue of the sea.
A house not theirs to live in.
A roof, a door, both black.
A bird that was blue in a tree.
Look there.
Girl stuck her arm up and out from where it touched the top of her knee.
They looked there to where her hand said to look.
They saw the sky, the trees, the dirt.
But this was not what Girl’s hand said for them to see.
What her hand could not tell them to see was what this all used to be.
This used to be a lake was what Girl told them to see. Here where we stand it used to not be this that we now see.
How would you know? was the thing that Jane asked to be told.
I read it in a book was what Girl said to this. And once I saw it now I see it at night when I shut my eyes to go to sleep. I dream this, each night, this lake that used to be here in this place. At night in my boat where I sit and rock in my chair to go to sleep I float out on that lake and like this I fish for fish in this lake, I talk to fish in this lake, the fish in this lake at night when I sleep, these fish talk back to me, the fish when I sleep and when I dream them like this they sing songs for me to sing. Out on this lake, at night, when I sleep, when I float here on my boat, I look down and I count these stars that I see that shine up from the sky that is this lake.