The Lake

The Lake
We all have that one place where we feel safe, a place that we know will always be there, but what happens when you wake up one morning and that special place is no longer there? When I was younger there was a small lake behind my house. It was nestled in a clearing in the woods. I would always go there after a bad day at school or after a fight with my parents. I would sit beside the bank and watch the water lap at the shore. During those times I thought nothing about the world around me.
Every day I would walk down the path to the lake and just sit there for hours at a time. The days, at the lake, were some of the best times I’ve ever had.   I remember that my best friend and I used to go to the lake all the time. We would run around past the tall trees, jump over fallen limbs, and dance around the edge of the lake as we played games. We played hide and seek, tag, Marco Polo, and reenacting the dangerous scenes from movies, you know the stuff that they tell you not to try at home? Yeah, we did that.
One time Patrick, my best friend, and I grabbed some of the sharpest sticks we could find and pretended that we were Jedi from Star Wars. I almost lost an eye that day. The lake was a safe haven for me. Whenever I was there, either by myself or with my friends, all of my worries or fears would disappear. It was almost as if swimming in the lake would make the heavy weight on my shoulders fall off.
Then there was the day when the man that owned the property started to build a sub-division on the land; I died a little inside that day. I can still see the yellow-orange of the bulldozers clashing with the dark green of the tress as they came rolling by demolishing everything in their path.   The rest of that day I sat inside and stared at the lifeless grey walls of my bedroom. All I could do was think about how I was never going to be the same; it seemed as if all the fun had been stripped from the world as if a black hole had just sucked it all up. I never... [continues]

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