when robert was nine years of age, he spent a day with his family at a lake. it was a camping trip, and they've found their camping grounds after a long ardous day of trekking. he recalled the sights as he stepped onto the clearing, tall green trees with trunks that were so thick, growing so densely that if you spent enough time staring at them, trunks and the gaps in between them flipped-flopped so that you'd think you were surrounded by a wall of wood with slivers of dark gaps in the grain. the lake was remarkably calm, its surface mirroring the sky above it. the edges of the water was clean cut. indeed, it was as if the lake was an illusion, and a giant oval mirror was situated smack in the centre of the clearing.

the air smelt fresh - the smell of passing showers and minty gum. the green grass crunched underfoot as robert ran around the clearing, ecastic at the prospect of spending what would surely be a splendid day and night at this place. his parents cautioned him about running too far away and getting lost in the jungle, but when one was a little before ten years old, such admonitions tended to evaporate in the ether between robert's parent's mouths and robert's ears.

robert jogged towards the lake and propped himself on his knees at the edge of the water. he could see his young face in the reflection upon the calm surface. he wasnt a cute child, but already one could see the dark brooking handsome starting to take shape. he reached his hand into the water, breaking the stillness, and ripples cascaded across his face like so many wrinkles that would've come to impress themselves in the years to come.

the water was cold.. too cold. the feeling travelled from robert's hands and across the highways of his senses, culminating in a tingling sensation in his spine. if robert had only more life experiences, he would identify it as a premonition of something going trribly bad. it was the feeling you got when you turn round a corner whilst running, and you see something big, bad and full of potential hurt heading your way. it's the feeling a dog gets when two full beams of headlights shine right into its eyes, as if they were lasers and they were gunning directly for the exact optic nerve that turned the dog's brain into a rusting conglomeration of mashing gears. the feeling robert felt, it rooted him to the spot, his brain sensing something, but his body going on strike. this hesitation robbed robert of the chance to find out whose hand it was that he felt on his back. the chance to find out which of his parent was the one who pushed him into the lake, and if he or she was smiling, crying, or worse, emotionless, when it happened.

all robert could do was snap his neck up and take a final look at the forest before him. it had flipped-flopped once again, so that the trunks formed a solid wall. but this time, the dark gaps in-between looked infinitly evil, as though they were slits in which all the hurt and sorrow of the world could escape from, and influence his parents. as he tumbled into the water, a brief revelation presented itself to robert. despite his young age, he understood nobody was going to come to his rescue. his outstretched hand above the surface of the water, the freezing cold water, would never find another warm human hand to grasp. the water had became his world, and the warm summer forest above it was another lifetime away. his vision clouded, first from the water, then from the lack of oxygen. as light from the sun dimmed, and robert sunk lower - his lungs already spasming, trying to reject the water that filled it, he realised all the innocence of his youth stood no chance against the world and it's evils.