Buddy walked into the lake with his shambling gait, legs struggling against the pull and push of the waves as they rolled into shore. When the water hit that belly of his, he dove in.

He come back up quick, legs pumping, arms spinning as he started an aggressive front crawl, hollering back something like, See ya, before committing completely to his task. We never seen him again.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense. There he was, swimming westward into the sunset. Before we knew it, he just shrank away into nothing against the horizon. Even then, nobody gave it a second thought just yet. Laughing it up, as we were, enjoying the day fade.

But then he was gone. Like, for real, gone.

We didn’t want to — nobody wanted to admit what had happened — but we had to call it in. Had to make it official. Our pal swam out into the blue and he hasn’t come back. Could you please help us find him, please?

The cops tried. I’ll give the bastards that much. Searched the lake, high and low. Searched the shores, towns, and highways leading to it, and even the rivers draining into it as well. But they couldn’t do it. Nobody has. Not yet.

Of course, they also asked us about a thousand questions each. Over and over and over again, as though we couldn’t be trusted. As though we had something to hide. As though in being there, bearing witness alone, we were guilty. Of something, if not a crime.

We told them the same thing. Over and over and over again. Some remembered buddy’s last words like I did. But others heard different. Take off. I’m out. Love ya. Almost everyone agreed buddy was wearing blue swim trunks, but can anyone be sure they weren’t black, or a wet purple? Funny how memory can fuck you like that.

Ha ha. Yeah.

In time, a funeral was held. Or a memorial. Celebration of life. Whatever you call it when you mourn a life lost, where there isn’t a body to bury. Only an idea, a memory. A spectre of what once was.  It was sad as hell, whatever it was. Everyone was crying. Everyone was all shook up. Nobody could make sense of it. Not then. Not now.

Despite the closure such rituals can provide, I still see buddy everywhere I go. Or, almost everywhere. In the grocery aisle. At the back of crowded concert halls. Dank arenas. In dreams. He’s there, my buddy. A ghost.

Where’d he go, though, our good buddy? Like, for real? Did the waves overpower him? Or was he lifted up from the water, by angels or aliens, to the heavens or the void beyond? Had he met a mermaid or monster midlake, or a sasquatch on the far shore, and gone adventuring? Or had he simply wished to make himself scarce for a while?

Nobody but buddy knows. And buddy’s gone.