We sit at the edge of the dock, bare toes dipping into cool water, hands shoved into dirty pockets, dirt-filled undersides of our nails poking out of the holes in our denim seams. You tear a tangerine into half-moon pieces, throwing the coils of its ribs into the water. Bring each half- moon to your mouth; sticky citrus runs down your chin, your arm, tumbling drop by drop into the water, sweet citrus mixing with the heat of the afternoon.
Wipe the sticky droplets off your arm. Stretch, young muscles swelling under the heat. Lay down on the uneven wooden planks, hand built by someone’s father generations ago. Legs dangle off the dock, toes just barely grazing the water. Lay with your hands over your chest in a funerary position. Close your eyes, squint under the harsh sun. Eyelids flicker— we lay in silence for a moment. I observe the ribs of the tangerine as it’s lulled down the soft current of the water until it disappears. It is the end of summer, and we are slipping through the cracks of the days faster than time can grab us. We close our eyes to avoid facing whatever is bounding towards us, or whatever we are bounding towards.
An idea: we hold ourselves in this moment, pause our meager existences. Nothing flows backwards or forwards in the absence of time. It’s easier to hold water once it’s frozen, a fierce thing we can carve into and hold in our palms. Nothing escapes through the cracks this way, not even the skin of the tangerine.
I wonder how many generations of algae have watched copper-faced children with pruned fingers jump into the cool water. How many wet feet have sunk into the warm mud at the base of the riverbank. How many others will linger on this dock after us, wishing that the sun was an eternity and the river didn’t flow quite so hastily. A slip, a conscious step, everything moves forward regardless.
In a few months’ time, fallen leaves will blanket the bank of the riverbed. The tangerine rind will have returned to the earth, somewhere unseen. It’s a good idea, suspending ourselves in this moment. I know you think so. I take your hand, gently rubbing the soft place between your thumb and forefinger. Later, when we go inside, we’ll have to wash our hands three times to get all the dirt out from underneath our nails. I’ll look at myself in the mirror, nose pink and peeling. Eat another tangerine after supper. Next spring, the water skaters will return, the algae, the flowers I never learned to identify. The sun will stay right as it is. But we will not.