What Lies Beneath

There was a celebration here. An autumn night, after the game, with warm beer and a couple bottles of vodka pilfered from a parent's liquor cabinet. They thought they were celebrating a victory over the opposing team; in fact they were celebrating the fact that they were young and healthy and invulnerable. They were celebrating life and their own bright futures and the insignificance of Time, celebrating with the beautiful ignorance of the young.

Later, they wouldn't be able to recall who had suggested swimming in the pond. Their memories had become as opaque as the dark surface the water. But on that chilly night they learned that reality lurks beneath the calm surfaces of life like jagged lengths of pipe.