Still Water

The lake reflected gray sky like a mirror that had forgotten what it was supposed to show. Elena stood at the edge, her boots sinking into mud, clutching her iPhone like it was the last anchor in a storming world. Three missed calls from David. Two voicemails. A text message she'd read twelve times: *We need to talk.*

Behind her, the neighbor's bull—a massive black beast named Brutus, absurdly—had broken through the fence again. He stood chest-deep in the water fifty feet away, an absurd, peaceful island of muscle and hostility, watching her with liquid dark eyes. The bull had been doing this all week. Escaping. Standing in the lake. Staring.

Elena's thumb hovered over David's number. They'd been together three years. Three years of dinners and arguments and shared beds and careful silences. David wanted children. She wasn't sure she wanted anything at all anymore.

Her iPhone slipped from her palm, hit a stone, and bounced once, twice, before plunging into the water. A perfect, terrible splash.

She didn't scream. She didn't gasp. She just watched the ripples spread outward, distorting the bull's reflection until the animal became something else entirely—ghost, monster, myth.

"Well," she said aloud to the empty shore. "Well, then."

The bull snorted, steam rising from its nostrils in the chill air. It began wading toward her, slow and deliberate. Elena didn't move. She thought about David's voice, the way it cracked when he was frustrated. The way he'd looked last night, searching her face for something she couldn't give him.

The bull emerged from the water, rivulets streaming from its black fur. It stopped five feet away and lowered its massive head, exhaling a warm, earthy breath that smelled of pond weeds and something almost tender.

Elena reached out, fingers trembling, and touched the rough curve of its horn. The bull didn't flinch.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she whispered.

The bull snorted again, then turned and lumbered back toward the broken fence, water dripping from its belly like a surrender.

Elena stood there a long time as the ripples finally stilled, watching the spot where her phone—and her old life—had disappeared beneath the surface. The water looked innocent again. Just water. Just a lake. Just a choice she hadn't made yet, but would have to soon.

She turned and walked back toward the cabin, leaving the shore empty except for the quiet lapping of waves against the mud.