One week ago, I had started swimming. I didn’t tell my mother about it, instead, I told her I went out for a walk. The Dutch have an expression for it. They call it uitwaaien. It meant something like walking into the wind.

Of course, I didn’t go swimming. I didn’t like the smell of chlorine and the sound of screaming kids reverberated against the tarnished windows.

There were three in total. One for children with some toys that shot water in an arc. The second one was long and small, where people swam laps. Those people often wore blue or black swimming caps as they glided through the water. The other pool had a diving board. That was the one where the cool kids were, sitting on the side, daring their friends to bomb dive from the diving board. There was a little cafeteria with glass panels that looked straight at the swimming pools where I could be found.

I stared at the reflective water and thought about death and the girl, Gloria Ferlucci. Gloria. I had snatched the photograph and hid it in my room. I stared at it before going to bed. Sometimes I even dreamed of the girl, though I never remembered it clearly. Every morning I was left with the lingering feeling of melancholy, seeping through my limbs. My mind felt like an old computer rendering an image of the vastness of space.

I didn’t know where the swings used to be when the playground wasn’t razed to the ground. But there was a chance her spirit still lingered there. So I stared out of the window and looked at the people, imagining her standing in the crowd.

Destiny seemed like drawing lots of improbabilities. The most unexpected things are often the most obvious. As a group of school kids walked in a disorderly line, I thought saw her. A girl with dark hair. I got op and made little cups around my eyes with my hands. So suddenly I moved, that my chair toppled over. I sensed the people in the cafeteria eying me and quickly turned to grab my chair. When I looked back, she was gone. Or rather, she had turned into another plain face trying not to slip on the wet floor.

As I cursed at myself, Mack walked in, followed by a group of people I never saw before. There were three older women, a man with a beard and a girl around our age. They took a seat at the opposite side of me, on a round table. They all looked somewhere between elated and nervous. One of the elder women took the lead. “Who wrote something they want to share?” as I stared at her back, Mack saw me. His mouth fell open. “I’ll get some drinks.” He said and got up. I could see his fingers clenched in a sweaty fist behind his back. We hadn’t talked since the forest. I followed him to the counter. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“So, a poem group?” I said, trying to sound neutral.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Do you want to sit with us?” He asked of a sudden. I turned around to stare at my empty chair. It’s like my table already forgot who sat there. I nodded. “No, I was just leaving.” As I turned and left, he grabbed my hand. “Chill, I won’t tell anyone!” I hissed. Behind him, I saw the group staring at us. “I don’t care, man. Just. I wanted to say I am sorry. For the forest.”

“Oh. It’s okay.” I walked away without looking back.

When I was outside, I heard someone running.

Lilies on the surface

Dancing in the dark

Frogs croaking, echoes of a time

Without language, without haste

The heron bathes her legs

And stares at her reflection

She spreads her wings and soars

Ripples on the surface

Whirling in the dark

“What?” I asked.

“Poems are not just about what you see. Everything is a metaphor.” Mack said. “What does this mean to you?”

“Like I know.”

“Try it, man.” He looked at me with such firmness I actually thought about it. He repeated the poem a second time. I listened with my eyes fixed on the pavement. “So there is a pond, I imagine.”

His wide-open eyes ushered me to carry on.

I thought for a moment. “The water is the time we have in this life. You are the heron. You leave ripples in the water but eventually, the water will be still again.”

Mack smiled. “Sometimes it’s like a stranger wrote it. But I think poems are snapshots of the soul.”

“Was I correct?” I asked him.

He just smiled whilst shaking his head. “That’s not even the point. It doesn’t matter because it’s subjective. Every Wednesday we gather here to talk about writing and share a snapshot.”

I remembered thinking. Every day I come here looking for ghosts. Mack went back inside and I walked around town. What was the point of finding the girl? Could I even communicate with her? Was she still there?

Gloria was my poem, my snapshot of the soul. She was as far from me as I was from myself. It’s only once the ripples of time have subsided that the obvious becomes clear. That the fabric reality almost feels tangible. Wisdom only exists in the past.