The Book of Elijah Knight 

Dragonfly (The Visitor)

At their Grandmother’s home, one late afternoon, we gingerly reverse from the dock in a pontoon boat, and make our way out of the alcove and into the lake. Asher can barely keep his eyes open. Looking into the sky, he lays in his Mother’s lap, watching the handful of clouds ripple across the celestial blue as if they were waves’ crests. It must seem odd to him that the sky and the lake switched places.

He closes his eyes.     

R’s knee unflinchingly receives a visitor. Its wings whir before powering down. Its wings are like tempered glass, the shapes and patterns like a thick frost - a paisley swirl on a windowpane. The Dragonfly rests on his knee, cupping the curve of his index finger, like one holds a basketball.

Unafraid, the visitor holds his hand during the entire trip - the way a child reaches for a parent’s hand when amongst strangers.

P. is at the front of the boat holding the rails and jumping in place, hoping that at least one of the waves before her will splash wildly against the pontoons. She urges her grandfather to deviate into the wake of a boat.

Their grandmother is sitting quietly in the back of the boat under the canopy. From the shade, she watches her granddaughter at the front shrieking in glee, while her daughter sits peacefully nearby with a sleeping Asher. She watches his toes stir occasionally.

The pontoons shear through the water like scissors gliding through a blue satin roll, threads of light tear from the water; floating; rippling in our wake.

The dragon fly’s winged tips have the same glint as the light sparkling on the crest of the waves.

Stoically, the visitor sits completely still and stares into the lake. Like Charon, the visitor provides safe passage through the water –its payment, the golden innocence of youth, safely clutched in its hand.

Light bounces and refracts within the Dragonfly’s panelled wings. Having escorted us for 20 minutes, it sputters away, its wings snapping through the air, like a card tied within the spokes of an adolescent’s bike.

R. clasps his fingers together and follows the fleeting buzz. He smiles at his grandmother.

Asher opens his eyes briefly and looks at the sky. He can see that the world is how he last left it. Satisfied, he succumbs to his drowsiness, having seen the water remaining above him as he, supine, skims along the heavens...as it should be. And as it always has.