Through a culvert flowed the single outlet for all of New Moon Lake, just large enough for a canoe to maneuver through if the person paddling all but disappeared. On one side of the culvert was our cove of cottages and boats, and on the other side was a little country stream. Above the culvert was a road that started at the state highway and ran past George’s grandfather’s great ancestral farm, then past the country estate of George’s uncle (who had sold most of the land on which these summer cottages stood), continuing towards a rural hill country where the paved road quickly turned to dirt and for all I knew turned into the earth itself.
As for the outlet stream, it disappeared into a land of trees towards a missing section of my mental geographic map, although in a few years, it would be dammed a few miles down to create a man-made lake which George’s uncle named after himself in order to make an even larger killing than the one he had made on New Moon Lake. But today it was just a place from where David and I played around the culvert.
The culvert was made of cement, and we were looking through the long chamber, sending our rebounding voices through its length towards the locket-sized appearances of lake and lakeside on the other end. That was fun, until David attempted to scale a rock right through the entire length, and that became even more fun. Every now and then a projectile would make it all the way and we would jump and cheer in utter delight. It was as if we were in exile and our rocks were messages to the world, not to run and rescue us, but to come and join us.
After a couple of hours, we tired of the play and sat by the streamside, watching the water flow towards a paradise of clay banks, willow trees, and sun. This was when David and I were best of friends, cousins who summered at this enchanting lake, and lived less than a mile apart during the other mundane seasons. In time we would drift apart, but today we were together in this fantasy of Eden.
I listened to the occasional vehicle bound either for the busy state highway or the quiet hill country. I touched the gentle trickle of water exiting the large expanse of lake to drop into this secret stream. I luxuriated in the middle of the summer, seemingly far away from the fall of town and school and homework. Through or over this opening of culvert, all the world went off in its varying directions. But here there was absolutely no direction. We had discovered our center of the universe and found there was nothing to it.
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