The Dock

Bonnie opened her eyes to the sunrise peaking over the eastern side of the lake. She felt the chill from the cool morning air settle over her skin, causing goosebumps to spread over her arms and legs. Bonnie blinked her eyes, trying to come to terms with what she was seeing before her. She felt spongey, rotting wood under her bare feet. Looking down, she realized she was standing on the old abandoned dock at the edge of the lake. Taking a step back, she felt the sun-bleached boards bend under her weight, threatening to splinter and give way from years of weathering and neglect. Bonnie turned, gingerly stepping around the worst of the rotten spots, her feet landing on the jagged rocks of the shore as she exhaled a sigh of relief. Her eyes traveled down the front of her body, she noticed her pale yellow night dress was torn and muddy at the bottom. As she glanced around, she wondered how she had gotten herself here in the middle of the night. Had she driven? She shuddered at the thought of her body operating a motor vehicle while she was fully asleep. Then she remembered her muddy night dress and bare feet. She examined her feet now, spotting a number of small cuts and scrapes, as well as dried blood and dirt. Had she walked the entire way barefoot? She shook her head and began walking slowly in the direction of her newly purchased lake house, hoping the answers would make themselves apparent along the way.

As she walked, she listened for the birds to begin their morning serenade. This was one of the biggest reasons she wanted to live by the lake. Bonnie loved the peace and quiet, but she especially loved the collective nature sounds; frogs croaking, birds chirping, and the almost deafening hum of cicadas in the hot summer months. Her lake-adjacent property was an eight minute drive, or about a half hour walk from the edge of the water, which was a huge selling point. Bonnie loved the solitude of living by the lake, the nearest neighbouring property several kilometers away. She had specifically chosen the less inhabited side of the lake, where the shore was rocky and steep, a stark contrast to the other side of the lake where the beaches were sandy and shallow. Not many people chose this side of the lake, and the few that did, preferred a more solitary way of life.

While the sun had risen, Bonnie felt the a chill as she noticed the silence around her. There were no bird songs. The woods were eerily silent this morning. 

Following the dirt road that lead back to her house, She reached the end of her driveway only to find that her front door was ajar. She said a silent prayer to the Gods she didn't really believe in, hoping that she had just left the door open on her midnight sleep-stroll. Bonnie crossed the threshold into her new home, her eyes sweeping from side to side looking for signs of wild animals, or worse, a human intruder. As she moved silently from one room to the next, her shoulders relaxed. There appeared to be no intruders, human or otherwise, meaning she had left the door open herself on her way to the lake. She sighed and went back to the kitchen to make herself some coffee.

As the coffee brewed, Bonnie crossed the kitchen toward the bathroom to get herself cleaned up. She sat on the side of the bathtub to scrub her dirty, bloody feet. As she examined her wounds, She thought about waking up beside the water this morning, and this brought up a whole new set of concerns. Her shoulders tightened as she considered her latest sleep-walking journey. This was the third one in as many weeks. Bonnie had never been a sleep-walker before, to her knowledge. The first night she spent in her new lake house, she had awoken around midnight, standing in the kitchen. It seemed harmless enough, so she had chalked it up to stress at the time, having just uprooted her entire life to move to the middle of nowhere. The second time, she had made it as far as the driveway. 

Bonnie dried her feet and changed into a pair of yoga pants and an oversized hoodie before heading back to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee.  She pulled her long auburn hair into a bun on top of her head. Sitting down with her laptop in one hand and her coffee in the other, she let her body fall gently into the seat of her big beanbag chair, and pulled up her emails. There was a new email from her sister, which was no surprise to Bonnie.

"Hey Bonbon,
hope the new place is as good as you thought it would be! I still can't believe you abandoned your family to live in the woods by yourself. What if you die out there?? Anyhow, I miss you, your nieces can't wait to come out for a swim sometime soon!
All my love, Carolyn."

Bonnie's eyes rolled as she thought about her two young nieces causing chaos and mayhem in her new lake-adjacent slice of heaven. The thought made her shudder. Bonnie loved her nieces, they were amazing little girls. But there was a reason Bonnie never had any of her own. Many reasons, actually.

Bonnie hit the "reply" button and began typing.

"Hey sis, 
Thanks! It's been really great. Promise I won't die. Let's meet up in town for coffee soon.
xoxo Bonbon"

Bonnie's icy blue eyes reread the email quickly before hitting send. Hopefully that was enough to keep her sister placated for a while. She scanned the other new emails, most of which were scammers and junk, looking for a familiar name that she hoped to see. This name did not appear anywhere in her inbox, yet again. She sighed and closed her laptop, crossing the living room to her work station where she logged in and prepared herself for another nine-to-five.