English story

No one talks about swimming at night the way it really is. There’s something about sitting in
the shallows and knowing that the only reason people approaching know you’re there is
because of the moonlight glinting off of your dripping skin. There’s something about being
on someone’s shoulders during a chicken fight and falling back to see a cascade of stars
above you before dipping into an inky black ocean that coats you in its warmth, away from
the wind that seems to cut your soaking skin. Something about the way that the ocean at
1:00 am that makes you feel like you’re flying through a vast void of infinite darkness and
the only thing calling you back into reality the laughter of some of your best friends as you
share your deepest secrets knowing that they’ll all be lost in the gap between what’s real
and what seems real. Then the wind is too cold and the water becomes too icy to play in. Its
cold enough you can almost feel your lips start to turn purple and blend into your charcoal
colored surroundings. So, you light a small bonfire with the sticks you gathered before it had
gotten dark.

The fire is a whole new element. Swallowing the darkness for miles around, taking the stars
and your secrets with it. There’s always a moment after you light a fire where you just get
lost in the hypnotic movement of the flame and for a moment it looks like it could be alive
and trying to tell you something. So, you speak the things the fire cannot. Your friends tell
stories of their lives, their ancestors lives and lives that are to come. The flames dance in
their eyes and on their wet shoulders until the fire laps up the water and turns the skin a
rosy pink color. Before you know it you’re all singing camp songs you learnt last summer and
laughing so hard it burns, more so than the marshmallows you fed to the fire only a few
minutes ago. The flames shake and move as if attempting to join in the fun before the icy
wind whisks away its last spark and your bodies, shaking with laughter begin to shake from
the cold.