The Quarry

Seymour looked out at the cliffs that had been carved away and the smooth blue water and wondered how deep the lake was and what lay at the bottom.

He had heard that it used to be a quarry until twenty or so years before. Italians had come over to cut the limestone out and make it into gargoyles that they put in the sky.

Supposedly when the quarry was flooded they abandoned all their machinery down there; Machinery that was too big or too old to be worth hauling out.

He thought about diving in with some goggles and seeing if he could swim down far enough to see the rusted old skeletons of cranes and fossilized shells of drills and ancient dulled knives. Probably no one would ever see them again. They would never again breath the air or feel the wind and sun.

He wondered if he dove off the cliff and hit his head on a rock and disappeared down into the dark how long it would take for him to float to the bottom.

He had grown up in a condo nearby and no matter where he went or what he did he felt the quarry was the center of his world, the great drain that he would always swirl back to, the well spring of his life.

He felt that, no matter what crime he committed, these waters would always offer him absolution.

He dove in.