Death on a Small, Dark Lake

by Lenny Everson

  Chapter 3

  Now you've got to understand, I was in a bad mood, or I wouldn't have said all the things I said.

  And why was I so pissed off? I'll tell you; it was because I was supposed to be camped all alone on a wild lake, sitting around a campfire, contemplating the wind or my old wild mind, or the hair growing out of my ears. Or whatever I needed to contemplate.

  By myself.

  I was, instead, sitting around a campfire by a wild lake, with a bunch of people I didn't know.

  And probably wouldn't have liked if I did know them.

  It wasn't the same.

  Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm good for pleasant conversation in the pub with a couple of friends. I'll do my duty and go to weddings and funerals and afternoon teas and God only knows what else. I'll live through it all.

  But I need my bush time. I need my lonesome lakes. I look forward to them. Getting away from it all is like taking a girdle off my mind.

  I did not, repeat, not, want to be with these people at this time.

  I had nothing against humanity at the time. It was just people I wanted to be away from.