Madeline

A Short Story

It looked like an eye.

It was rounded, not quite an almond, but close to it. It was opened wide, watching as if it did not have an eternity.

The trees mimicked eyelashes, maybe not in colour, but they were spiky and framing all the same. The birds scattered throughout twinkled, as if raindrops had collected on each of the hairs.

When looking from above, the tiny ripples on the surface resembled the individual streaks that created the hue of an iris. The terrain around it formed a raised mound for the cheek. The ridgeline was an eyebrow, and the valley a lid, folded thinly, allowing the lake to see everything.

And deep. The lake was so, so deep. Suffocating to some, but releasing for me.

The further down you got, the darker the shade of blue. Aqua to royal. Royal to navy. Navy to midnight.

Silver fish shooting like stars in a pool of never-ending night.

Everything that the lake saw, it absorbed. Stored. Remembered.

It was always remembering, and never sharing.

When I made my way here for the first time, I was bordering teenage hood. Not quite old enough to truly be considered mature, but beyond the humours of a child.

I was old enough to be alone, and so, unlike fellow females of my age, who were finding sleepovers and socialising to be the recent obsession, I chose to walk with my thoughts, to scour the land, to learn its traits as it learned mine.

I sat with silence, and yet my conversations had never been as entrancing.

I was content to be accompanied by only my mind, yet I was never short of a companion.

As I moved into high school, the lake listened as I ranted and gossiped. For the lake had met teenagers before, and it understood the desperations of popularity and status.

When I grew closer to adulthood, the lake comforted me through exams and meltdowns, tedious study sessions and anxious periods of waiting.

When I told the lake that I had to leave, the lake was happy for me. But it was also sad.

The lake didn’t like being lonely.

So I promised the lake I would come back, and I would bring the lake someone else to love.

I trusted him. I came back, and I brought him with me, just like I said.

I showed him the shooting stars of fish, and he laughed.

I showed him the trees where birds gossiped, and he was mesmerised.

I showed him the lake, and I showed him me.

The lake is where it happened.

After, I didn’t want to come back. The lake had betrayed me, and crushed me, and ruined me.

And yet, just like the first time ever, it drew me in. Not out of curiosity, though. This time, I came back out of desperation.

I was angry at the lake.

Why would the lake let something like that happen?

Yet, soon after, I found in it great consolation. Once my fire of anger was reduced to embers, I realised that the lake was the only place was where I could think what I knew.

Where I could believe in what I knew.

Where I could voice what I knew.

The lake was the only person that believed me.

That is why I chose it.

It listened to my plan. It didn’t judge, and it didn’t villainise me.

When the time came, it unhesitatingly swallowed the baritone screams. It smoothed out the leaves and blew the wind to cover any signs of life.

Before I released him into the water, I made the lake promise.

So, as I watch his face become blurry, sinking from aqua to the royal blue, I know the lake won’t tell anyone.

Bio

Madie Gordon is a 16-year-old student in the Year 10 Creative Writing Class. As a member of the Oxley community since Kindergarten in 2014, Madie has been exposed to the concepts of English, public speaking and celebrations of literature from a young age. Her mother’s initiative in promoting reading as both a hobby and habit has long resulted in her self-proclamation of ‘bookworm’, and her expansive collection of novels. In her future, she plans on a career in chemistry and teaching, and she has a desperate passion to see the world, starting in Europe. Whilst writing may remain an enjoyable hobby, it does not find itself prominent in her life plan.

Book Review – Persuasion by Jane Austen

‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen is an entrancing novel that follows the humble life of 27-year-old Anne Elliot. The unsung emergence of her ex-lover Captain Wentworth provides the ultimate source of emotional turmoil and gossip for family and family-friends. Beginning with the sale of her father’s London estate, Anne chooses to temporarily move in with her sister and cousins, an invisible addition to the lively estates. At the forming of a new social circle, Anne’s inevitable exposure to Captain Wentworth pushes her wits, patience and maturity. The most tedious thoughts she experiences, and to remind herself of her prized sensibility often becomes a task. As she watches romance blossom between Wentworth and her cousin, Louisa, Anne discovers surprising connection with a certain Captain Benwick. This becomes a short-lived companionship built on the basis of proper education. When injury severs the said parties, Wentworth reveals an absence of emotion regarding Louisa, rekindling the spirit of love in Anne, completely against her will, of course. At the end of her stay, Anne is reacquainted with her immediate family in Bath, to which they have moved, where introductions are made with her perhaps suspiciously charming cousin, Mr Elliot. At the news of engagement between Captain Benwick and Louisa, Mr Elliot reveals his sudden intention to marry Anne Elliot, where Anne finds the perimeters of her world quite different to those she had imagined. As she debates this confronting opportunity, Wentworth inspirationally writes her a letter, passionately declaring his wholistic love and faith for the subject, at which point Mr Elliot mysteriously disappears with another woman, and all becomes settled. Anne Elliot, soon to be Anne Wentworth. Or Anne Elliot-Wentworth. Or Anne Wentworth-Elliot. Such precarious possibilities.