Pasha

PashaWhen there is no wind I imagine that I am at Lake Bled with Pasha. The water is so flat and still. Pasha stands naked apart from his water wings. His white bum twitches when the cold moves through him. He flaps his arms a little, his wings might float on air. He jumps. The lake surface starts in surprise, murmurs as grinning Pasha runs back to me.

But when the ferry turns the lake with waves I am on a dry beach. Pasha skids across the tension of my memory, like an insect in the reeds, and is gone.

 

Ruth Corkill is a physicist working in Wellington, New Zealand who spent three months studying poetry and fiction at the Iowa Writers Workshop summer graduate program. She also has a minor in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington. Her work has previously appeared in U.K. and New Zealand publications including New Welsh Review, The Dominion Post, Hue and Cry, The Listener, Jaam, Landfall, and The Bristol Short Story Competition Anthology.

Photo credit: Darron Birgenheier

 

One Response to “Pasha”

  1. Amirh McNeil says:
    February 27, 2015 at 6:32 pm

    I love this story. I noticed it on the page because of the photo. I thought, Hmm that looks just like New Zealand!

    …Across the tension of my memory.

    Thank you.

    Reply

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