Ghost River

Dying days of the summer; cold mornings and warm afternoons.  This one spent at the retreating lake.  

I swam across to the island that is no longer an Island.  Forgetting that this was the case, I stripped off, covered myself in mud and settled back against a tree stump to let it dry.  A dog ran up, followed by a chatty naked man and the following half an hour was spent talking to a complete stranger in my birthday suit.   The mud started cracking and pulling so I crab-walked into the water  and remained immersed up to my neck until it got too cold.  Amongst the small talk of the encroaching autumn, the plummeting level of lake water and alternative ways of heating old farmhouses this winter, he told me where to go to find the stone bridge that crossed the river that had formed this valley before it was flooded in the '80's and the lake was created.

I wriggled out of the water, dressed, tied my bra around my neck, bid him goodbye and swam back to Mu and the car to seek out the bridge. 

We drove around the Lac Constant, where small dams hug the water and down to the wild corner where the woods give way to the empty lake.  Miles of cracked white clay, little oak saplings pushing up and beginning to thrive and down to the ghost river.  The river bed was deep, large trees which had boarded it 40 years ago were now water-hardened stumps and roots. We followed it to the stone bridge which has spent 4 decades submerged.