You arrive on Friday and you leave on Sunday. It’s just a weekend. You wish you had longer, but that’s all there is. Friday you leave after work, as early you can manage. Earlier than your coworkers, because you have the kind of job where you can do it. Or you get in late. You’re the last person in and everyone’s drunk by the time you get there because you have a job that you can’t leave until a prescribed time. Everyone’s drunk and they’re so happy to see you, and not just because they’ve been drinking and they’re happy about everything, which means they’re drunk. You drive up by yourself or with other people also coming for the weekend. You might drive alone and you might cram into the back corner of a Suburban with seven of your closest friends, but either way, you probably drive. It’s unlikely you zipped up in your seaplane and landed on the lake, near the house, which has a dock.
But the seaplane is helpful because it introduces that there’s a lake. The house is on a lake, with a dock extending out into incredibly still slate-colored water. There might be some other houses on the lake but they’re far away, if they’re there, or just around the bend, so you’re all essentially alone. The area is sparsely populated either because it’s a slightly depressed rural area or because it’s a really nice area and someone who was part of organizing for the weekend found a great deal. At some point during the weekend you walk out on the dock, by yourself, counting its ribs with your bare feet, taking care because the nails are slowly working their way out. It is morning, or late evening, or at night when the sky’s clear. Whatever time it is the sky and the upside down world reflected on the incredibly still water is just fantastic. At some point you will leave the house and walk out on the dock until you’re standing in the lake, it seems, so you can have some space to yourself.