Story-A-Day #202: Dead Head

DEAD HEAD

It’s hard to tell where it came from, this great yawning crocodile of a dead head. There used to be three of them down here at the lake, each about eight feet long. None of them are here now though, only this 40-foot monster.

They tend to shift over the winter, pulled from the muddy beds by the grasping ice. They move, but only a bit.

There has never been a year where three have vanished and one has taken their place, especially one as large as this. It is hard to fathom the force of the ice that would have landed this here.

I don’t remember seeing any dead heads nearby with foliage sprouting from them either. Usually they are smooth, dark brown logs that just sort of sit there, an inch or two beneath the water.

This beast has travelled far to reach here, and now it stretches across our beach, almost as if warning us of some danger that awaits beyond.

Of course, that a ridiculous thought. This is a warm and shallow lake filled with small breeds of fish. There are no piranhas, no sharks, no whirlpools or riptides. There is no danger out there, except perhaps the strong breezes that can carry a solo canoeist away. Even then, the shore is never far, and the walk back never too long.

So where did this come from?

It is too old and wizened to be newly fallen, its bark already stripped and its inner wood smoothed by the passage of time.

The submerged tips are too large and embedded for it to be a new arrival, the humps rising from the water too full of life to have recently settled. And yet, it was not here in the fall.

Three others were, one to the south, and two to the north. None of them stretched across the beach like this.

A sudden blast of bubbles rise up around the tree and it shifts. Or at least that what appeared to happen. I wait, and another blast of bubbles rises up. It is settling.

Then, with a flick, it moves off into the lake, the foliage-covered bits flickering to and fro like a tail. When it reaches the deeper waters, it submerges with a splash.

It was no log. I scan the lake for the next hour, looking for signs of where it might have gone, but the log has vanished.

Something tells me I won’t be doing much swimming this year. At this point, I’d be hard pressed to get into a boat.

There is something in those waters, something I can’t quite understand. I can picture it, settled into the muck of the murkier deeps, waiting patiently for me to pass by, angry that I disturbed its sleep.