A lake somewhere unknown was still. It had been still for so long it had forgotten there was any other way to be.
Its surface was black, deep black, the black of the space between stars, the black of sleep without dreams, the black of water that had never known wind.
No ripples moved across it. No fish broke its surface. No birds flew above it, no insects skimmed its edge, no reeds grew along its shore.
It was a lake that had been made for nothing but to be still, and it was very, very good at it.
The sky above it was pink. Just a mix of white and red. It went on forever since it had no sun to make it. It was just there, endless.
It reflected in the black water, but the reflection was wrong, dimmer, darker, the color of something remembered rather than something seen.
The horizon was a line of deeper pink, a seam where sky and water met and held, and there was no shore, no land, no end to the stillness.
In the middle of the lake, a fluff floated.
