Emi Kodama,
excerpt from "A forest of houses, a corridor of trees"

I’m skipping rocks along the shore. The lake glimmers at this time of night. Someone throws a boulder into the water, and there is a big sploonsh and a peal of laughter. It’s been an easy day of sunning, swimming, and roasting hot dogs.

We are near the canoe rental, and the boys decide it’s the perfect time to take one for a spin. The canoes are just tied together, but the life jackets and paddles are locked in a shed.

“Think, think, think,” John says to himself.

Dan comes from behind the shed with a broom. “Will this do?”

They drag a canoe across the sand and dash the last few meters to push it into the water. They jump in just before their shoes are soaked.

They’re off, gliding forward unsteadily, and soon they are mere silhouettes. As they become smaller and smaller, they laugh, and the sound echoes like they’re in multiple places at once.

I stand with the rock I was about to throw still in my hand. From here, the moon is small and the lake is big, and it’s hard to remember that the opposite is true. The moon is a path of light on the water. It’s broken up into a hundred little shards. When the wind changes, they’re a thousand splinters. The pieces look like small, hard fragments that the boys are sweeping, one stroke at a time, into a moon that will never be put together.