Along the Edges of Lake Okinho by Harrison Kim

Bo strode bare footed along the grass and mud-covered edges of Lake Okinho.  By a cat tail marsh, he flipped his cowl back and unbuttoned the front of his purple robe. Made-up hymns set to his walking rhythm flowed from his brain to his voice box and out into the world where no-one was currently listening.  “I have a friend in Jesus,” he sang, as the cat tails moved slightly in the wind.

He wasn’t thinking about sex, drugs and rock and roll.  Not at all.

“If they run through my mind, it’s just water through a stream,” he said out loud.

It wasn’t that these things weren’t there, he didn’t hang onto them.

At the mouth of the river, he stopped, flung off his robe.  He stood in the sun for a moment, then slid down to lay on his back in the shallows.  The current flowed around him and parted his elbow length hair.

“What is the meaning?” he hummed. “What is the way?”

He imaged a thought photo of Nebuchadnezzar, the King who lived naked in a cave and crawled on all fours as penance for his sins.  He thought of Jesus who went forth to spread the gospel and was pure of mind and body.  Then he tried not to think of anything except what was happening right now.

Bees and mosquitoes buzzed around him.  He ducked his face a few times in the river to cool off.  Above, several jets white-smoked by against the blue of the sky. Bo breathed in and out, splayed his feet out further into the water and let the river water swirl. It was about the most cared for he’d ever experienced.  God flowed around and within him.

About noon he rose up, flung his robe over his shoulders and moved towards the beach at Solo Point.  As he crossed the fast-flowing creek at the edge of the sand, he picked up a thick fallen poplar limb.

“Who’s that near naked guy waving the long branch?” asked Janine.

She sat against a beach log on a mauve towel eating an orange popsicle.  The sun melted sugar juice down around her fingers.  She was a Ph. D in philosophy, but that was only a fraction of what defined her. 

Beside her knelt Diane, one of her guitar strummer summer friends, dressed in blue jean cutoffs and a sporty green top, playing the country hit “Who’s Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”

Janine complimented Diane on her voice, which rang clear and steady.

The two young women finished off their orange popsicles as Bo approached.  Janine used the end of one stick to scratch the back of her knee.

She noted that Bo wore a triangular green loincloth. At about twenty feet away, the young man re-applied his robe over top of it.  Janine wiped her sugary popsicle fingers on her leg.

“I’ve come all the way from the edge of the lake,” Bo told Janine and Diane.  “Across the mudflats and the river mouth, hiking in my barest feet for three hours.  I rose from a peaceful place of meditation to come and ask one question.  Would you like to hear it?”

“I guess,” said Janine, tucking one leg under her as Bo stood against the lake view in his half-buttoned robe.

Another jet streaked across the sky, silent because it was so far up.  Janine thought to the passengers, the lake would be about the size of Diane’s guitar.  She always tried to look at things from another perspective. 

She stretched her back to see over Bo’s shoulder.  Aspen leaves rustled from skinny shore trees, and beyond them, across the lake, kayak paddlers moved like melting ribbons.  Bo lifted the poplar branch across his shoulders.  He stood with arms outstretched, grasping the thick limb with either hand and asked “Are you girls Christians?”

Janine picked up a rock and rubbed it against a mosquito bite on her elbow.

“I would say in spirit,” Diane told him.  “Although I don’t go to church.”

Janine looked at the tops of Bo’s somewhat hairy, sunburned feet and threw her rock in the opposite direction.  A low rumble sounded from the north, behind Tapocan Mountain.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Everyone looked. Tapocan mountain loomed behind the lake, its hump shaped like a huge bear stomach. "Maybe thunder?” Diane considered.

Bo dropped his branch to one side and smiled, his lip split in the middle by a crack that bled slightly.

“Could be US missiles heading for an atomic war.”  He cupped his hand over his ear. “Today I believe will be the last day of life as we know it.”  He flipped back his hair, showing the side of his triangular nose. “Why does God allow bad things?”

He traced a word in the sand with his big toe.  Janine watched the toe dig deep, had flashing thoughts of people who lost their arms and used their toes to write. There were tales of an armless boy who played the snare drum with his feet.  Janine usually welcomed difference, that was the correct thing to do.  This young man was likely neurodivergent.

Bo finished his toe tracing. The word he wrote was “Repent.”

He’d traced the letters upside down so that Janine could see them right side up. Janine continued to talk in her low, radio announcer voice.  She’d made quite a few recent podcasts about the meaning of life, viewed by thousands, and wanted the likely religious Bo to hear her point of view. 

“I believe in spirit.  A spirit that’s external.  It flows through the consciousness of all of us in equal measure.” Janine related. “I believe there’s a God moving through everyone, and if we use that God-given flow for good, there will be peace within ourselves, and that peace will change the world.”

Diane strummed the guitar while Janine spoke, playing the melody to “Imagine,” by the long-dead Beatle John Lennon.  Her mind thought-scanned photos of her parents. They were Christians who made her go to Sunday School.  She considered what Bo said about atomic war.  Before this, nobody ever brought the subject up, especially on a summer afternoon beach eating popsicles by Lake Okinho.

“I want to live,” Diane thought. “I’ve only just begun my life.”

Bo felt the sun on his back.  He viewed Janine in her orange shorts on which were written “Fresh.”  As she spoke, she ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it into a ponytail.  Then she slipped a yellow elastic band around that ponytail.

Bo checked out Diane’s fingers on the strings. She had a trained right-hand technique.  Her fingers moved like waves, in and out of the string spaces. He gazed above her, to Tapocan Mountain.  A dark cloud appeared over the farthest edge.  Bo stood waiting, thinking again of picking up his poplar limb.  “What was that about peace?” ran through his mind as he looked at Janine.

Janine sat up against her beach log and crossed her legs. The blurry wings and blue body of a dragonfly flew a few inches from Bo’s nose, between him and the dark cloud.

“Those insects make a great buzz,” Bo said.  “Even in these end times.”

“What I want to say,” Janine continued, “Is that everyone and everything is connected.  Religions make artificial boundaries.”

“Is your phone working, Miss?” Bo asked, as beads of sweat dripped down his long neck. “You’ve both been here a long time without using your phones.”

Janine pulled hers out.  It had a purple cover and matched perfectly the shade of Bo’s robes.  She wondered why she should check her phone just because this guy told her to and plonked it back in her green beach bag.  This guy did not appear to be a listener.  He hadn’t addressed any of her points. 

“Yes,” Bo continued.  “I think consciousness was given to us by God.  My problem is that we’re using it to destroy the world.”

“Why is that?” Janine asked, because she’d thought about this conundrum quite frequently.

“Human nature is to sin,” Bo said. “Perhaps the missiles have already left their launchers.  That’s why your phones are likely out of commission.”

Diane stood up and put the guitar on the log.  She took out her phone and looked at the message, “We’re experiencing temporary wifi problems.  Please try again in five minutes.”

“Now you’re scaring me,” she said. 

“We’ve all fallen short,” Bo said.  “There’s nothing wrong with sin, if you repent and ask for forgiveness.  You can do it, right here and right now before the world ends. Just get down on your knees before the Lord.”

“The world isn’t ending,” Janine said, a little louder than she’d intended.

Bo felt the rising anger and fear.  It always came out, sooner or later, when he introduced the dark side.

A thunder rumble sounded over Mount Tapocan.  Across the lake, the ribbons of kayaks vanished. 

Janine thought of all the things she intended to do with her life.  Travel to Ireland next month.  Make more podcasts, find more followers.  Influence the world for the better by spreading her ideas.  And in the fall, she would start to teach full time at the University. 

Now her afternoon was turned round by this intense beach Bible man dressed in purple robes over a green loincloth. 

“You never knew what might happen in this world,” Janine thought.

As she contemplated this, Bo thought, “I could knock both these women over with my thick poplar limb.”

But that would be coming from his own sinful human nature.  Even though it would be an act of mercy.  Because he felt for them, like he felt for himself when he floated in the river.  How beautifully they reclined on the golden beach, their bare skin against the sun, wanting light, just like him.  How the orange shorts girl aligned with his own feelings when she said, “There’s a god in everyone.”

He didn’t want them to suffer, and the atomic missiles were likely launched already.  Despite these feelings, he would leave their fate up to God, and the girls would have time to decide themselves about repentance.

He was merely a final-hour messenger.

“I’ve got a friend in Jesus,” he repeated in a whisper.

He pressed that last thought into his head.

His friend Jesus would deal out any consequences regarding heaven or hell.

Only a few hours ago, the Lord held him in the water, letting the warm river move round the top of his head. Sin flowed by but did not enter.  Faith for the Jesus within him kept his body and mind strong against that powerful current.

Diane glanced at her phone again.  “This is really making me nervous.” she said.  “That cloud up there has a red ring around it.”

“Could you see if there’s any news?” Janine asked.

Bo held out his arms, palms up.  His purple robe fell open at his chest as he appealed to the summer girls one last time.  

“Give your life over to God before it’s too late,” he said, straight from his soul.

The two young women stayed focussed on their electronic devices. 

Diane’s eyes briefly met his, and Bo thought “maybe she sees who is truly inside.” 

“Sir, please leave us alone,” Diane stated, then looked at her screen again.  “It still isn’t working.”

Bo turned, stretched his arms out, this time towards the lake, then he turned and hiked barefoot back along the beach, dragging his toes in the sand.  He waded through the rushing creek at the far edge, removed his robe along the way and folded it round his shoulders. 

“I have a friend,” he sang, louder and louder as the black cloud grew, and explosions like distant thunder crashed from behind the big bear hump of Tapocan Mountain.

Harrison Kim lives and writes in Victoria, Canada.  Recent stories have been published in Bull Literary Magazine, Literally Stories, Bewildering Stories, and others. His blogspot, including publication credits and music videos, can be found here: https://harrisonkim1.blogspot.com/