The Eidolon

Write a story where a creature turns up in an unexpected way. This was a prompt from a writing competition. I won a bronze medal for the entry, this is part of it.

Short Story

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The Eidolon peered through the water reeds, which appeared like protective iron spikes preventing the early mists from climbing the banks of the lake, no breeze or gentle wind aided the soft wafts of water vapour to advance to the warmer land, the majestic globe of water hung back, sulking behind the dark mask of the day. The bullrushes increased the impression of a prison boundary, although their brown heads were disintegrating and eroding with age, devoured by the march of time. In the delicate milky half-light of the approaching dawn, the vast water monster looked about its prison, and there was no escape. The grey misty dawn light would not allow it to perceive the guards clearly on the banks. The opening curtains of the day heralding those tall deciduous sentinels, now falling in their age, littered the ground with their rotting summer celebrations, soon their fragrant summer smells would fade into decaying memories around their roots.

It was the time in the year for the night to be selfish, to ponder and absorb the light, constrain the light of the shining orb, and only begrudgingly let the splinters of illumination enter the edge of the stage later in the day’s performance. The night gathered its forces from the north, in the darkness the thieves could steal the summer gaiety and carefree ambivalence, as day by day the air changed, and slowly the decaying, aging process of nature started capturing the most vulnerable. Those languid summer butterflies quivered when the wisps of cold air appeared like daggers attacking from the north, returning to capture, to lay siege on the late summer days and nights.

The Eidolon knew this time well, it was advent time, the time of calling. The time of rebirth was coming. Rebirth of the trauma.

The Eidolon lived in the lake, it was at one with the lake, it was at one with the water. The water was calm, at peace in its surroundings, like a huge luminous multi-coloured stone setting on the earth, by the master craftsmen, nature itself. Only the sun and the moon knew of the lake’s birth. Only the sun and the moon knew when the Eidolon took its first pneuma, its first breath in the universe, and only the stars knew of its purpose.

The car appeared suddenly from the trees. Any purring engine noise was muffled by the sentries of the lake, but they stood motionless; agelessly watching the human made monstrosity destroy the day’s gentle haze, its laziness was interrupted. The slow cracking of twigs and grating of small stones disturbed the natural noises of the environment, all the surrounding nature looked on silently at the intrusion to their solemnity by the slowly moving alien monster arriving at the lake house. Like any monster it left a destructive trail in the pristine natural environment, the fallen leaves crushed into a swollen sodden mold imprinted with disrespect, by the crazy laughing tyre design.

The Eidolon looked on from behind the spikey reed bank of the lake, the waiting was over.