The Lake Monster

Second entry to Cosmisstries

My family plays a game called Throw-up words. In the game, one of us picks out 13 words and we need to form poems or stories incorporating these words. I compiled this story while playing the game and decided to polish it up and put it in my blog.

This is a short story of a girl who understands how the lack of knowledge can cause havoc and misunderstanding...
Enjoy reading😉

The Lake Monster

Even though it happened yesterday, it feels very hoary. I was sitting leaned onto my chair; reading a chapter about parasitic animals, when my mother called out to me. She told me to visit the market and buy a few things. To escape the peril of learning biology, I ran out immediately. Since we lived on the opposite side of Lake Silver, I had to board a ferry to the market. I rushed into the ferry before it left the shores. It was a big ferry with many passengers. I meandered here and there to look for a seat; I finally found a seat next to a family. The ferry slowly left the shores.

Lake Silver is a huge lake, so the journey to the other side was extremely long and boring. I sat in solitude, quiet as a mouse, watching some YouTube videos, while the family next to me were chatting loudly. The young toddler was clutching a ragged doll tightly, but when there was a little shake in the water, the boat tilted a little. The girl was a bit frightened so she released her hands a little and the doll tipped out of the ferry and Plop! The Doll fell into the turquoise water and it sank deep into the lake.

Immediately the girl broke down in tears. She was sobbing uncontrollably. All the passengers were looking at her. I thought that they would try consoling her, but the people ran towards our seats and looked down into the lake. They were in awe. Everyone started wondering how the doll went into the lake. Finally, one very tall person exclaimed-

“The lake is alive! It swallowed the doll!!”

This overwhelmed the whole ferry. They became frenzy; started

yelling and howling.

All the children started wailing while the adults danced in chaos.

“Gah! Gah! Save us Lord!!” they screeched like the bats at night.

To check if there really is a monster, some very clever people started throwing rocks and broken bits of the ferry into the water, which would obviously sink. This made the people more afraid and made them scream even more.

The people were so anxious that they looked like they would strangle the boatman. Talking about the boatman- he was extremely puzzled and seemed very clueless. All the passengers were getting excited for a simple yet marvelous wonder of science. Even though I knew why the doll sank, I remained silent, listening to Taylor Swift songs.

But it got on my nerves after a while, when all the people tried to jump out of the ferry, to offer themselves as ‘sacrifices’ to the ‘Lake Monster!’

I finally decided to validate the phenomenon and I stood up bravely on my seat and yelled-

“SILENCE!”

All the passengers looked towards me-

“The doll sank into the lake because its density is higher than the density of water”

Then I proudly stated-

“People, think in your horse-sense, how can an abiotic thing come to life?!”

I shouldn’t have said this- the people were pestering and asking me to define density.

I had just finished studying physics the other day and I didn’t want to recall all of it again, so I just blabbed some nonsense about density, which would have surely gotten me a big zero in my test.

The passengers looked so jumbled and muddled, that they ignored all of my ‘Golden words’ and they started jumping in fright of being eaten by the monster next! Even the boatman gave up hope and started following the crowd’s choreography. I sat down again, feeling irate.

I took out my phone to get back to YouTube when… I felt a quake. A small rocking from here to there. I held my breath. The ferry swayed in oscillatory motion as it slowed fell into the cool waters. All the passengers tumbled into the chilly lake while they screamed for their lives! I too was thrown into the water. Life jackets were given immediately to everyone, though the one thing in their minds was- the monster who would be feasting on them! Everybody’s screams were synchronized and sounded like an alarm to the nearby ferry to tow us up.

They finally came and helped us up onto the ferry. Instead of keeping their mouths shut, the passenger of the ‘Fallen Ferry’ polluted the passengers of the rescue ferry about the so-called ‘Lake monster.’ I wasn’t worried about how the new passengers reacted, because the only thing on my mind was that- My phone had gone into ETERNAL SLEEP!!! I really wish that I could have stayed back home studying Parasites instead going through all of this chaotic nonsense! I was truly the hapless one… Grumbling in my mind, I looked outside, towards canopy surrounding Lake Silver, as the ferry swiftly docked near the shores…

 Picture courtesy- Pixabay