The Detritus of Lost Time

The surface of the water was calm and reflective, except where my paddle would rouse tiny maelstroms of activity which were reflected and repelled by the cattails and the duckweed. Mired in the sediment of a thousand years they listened to whispered words and focused the lament of loss, directing my mind to the inescapable present they adorned. It was impossible to be anywhere else when here. I mistook their presence for the ascension of some sort primordial death ritual, confused, as I was, by the reek of decay and the detritus of lost time, always searching for an exit from the labyrinth.
The growling and gurgling exhaust of passion cut across those first impressions I had of this place and filled me with a fear of the depths, a fear of the collapse of the structures around me and the unconscious pull of death. And then we pushed past them and their grip on me faded into the back of my mind and I was free from the desire to join with them in their vigilance, escaping the brutal morality they disguised so cleverly with flowers and greenery.
"Hey, would you please pay attention."
"What?"
"You're going to tip this bloody canoe if you don't lean back. Have you never seen a weed before?"
"Sorry, man, I was just trying to see the bottom."
"Yeah, and if we were going to the bottom I'd be impressed, but we're not. We're supposed to be there for six and if you don't get paddling we'll be late. Fix your eyes on the horizon and paddle."
And I did.
The slow pull of the current, the sideways dreams of the ancient forest that longed for word from the time of creation, the low-slung sky that held its breath, waiting for the moment my attention wavered, all of these standards of war, adapting to my presence, accepted my challenge and now hung back, as if communicating their assault and I wished I could read the signs. The language of fear, committed to one purpose, spoken aloud and condensed into an in audible sigh, misunderstood and confused, could only result in chaos and I stood on a precipice, my balance nothing more than a question shouted into the heavens above me.
"Paddle, you idiot." he yelled at me.