April 21, 2014

April 21, 2014

Not that long ago I went to Loch Ness to hopefully see the Loch Ness monster or known in that area as “Nessie.” I took a boat out in the middle of the night and I was by myself.  I was undergoing a depression, with respect to a novel I was writing, that I couldn’t finish for some reason called “Lascar: A Story You Must Forget.” I thought it might be a nice idea if I just, without thinking, take the boat out and maybe not return.  I didn’t want to drown, but I was hoping that I would be killed by the monster that was reportedly in the deep water.   I couldn’t see anything, but the reflection of the stars on that clear night on the water.  The beauty of being in such an environment is the absolute silence of the water.  Time-to-time, I would put my fingers in the water and slowly dragged them across and onto my boat.  I think I was hoping to be able to attract the attention of whatever was down there, but nothing happened, and the silence that came afterwards was like the big hole I was falling into due to my depression.

The only other time I have been made aware of a water creature was the Kappa, which is a Japanese myth (or they say) where he lived in the once existing river that ran through Tokyo.  I went by the district many times, and I saw an image of the Kappa that deeply affected my psyche.  Basically it is a warning to children not to mess with the dangers that are lurking in the waters.   It is likely to be for that reason why I don’t or cannot swim.  I have a deep subconscious fear of water being contained in large areas - which can mean to be anything from a lake, like Loch Ness, to a city owned swimming pool.

Throughout my life I had the fear of being dragged down by some creature of the deep, and the Loch Ness Monster has been an obsession of mine for many years now.  The Kappa was known to trick children to come to the water, and then eventually they would drown.  In most cases, these are just children playing too close to a body of water and eventually getting carried away by the water’s currents.  But the narrative is very much the same in that a Kappa approaches a child and entices them to come into the water with them.

Now that I am grown up I can see the Kappa as a form of depression, or a body or presence that one can say ‘Ah, you’re the reason for so and so.”   The Loch Ness monster may or may not be that type of phenomenon, yet as I drift aimlessly on that water, the only melody that came to my head was an old traditional country tune by the Louvin Brothers called “In The Pines,” which seemed to fit perfectly on this forlorn boat going nowhere.