There is something beautiful about a lazy river. I’ve always thought so, at least. They’re like heaven on earth: a place to let your fears and inhibitions flow away, where you can sit back and feel the cold water on your fingers and the heat of the sun on your skin. Each is a perfect combination of nature and artifice, and moments inside of them are like being inside terrariums. In touch with the world, and yet safe, and contained. I like to make it a point, whenever I go to a waterpark, to find myself in a lazy river. They differ in quality, of course—I find that the best ones incorporate nature and rock formations and depth—but they’re always better than being on land. Being carried away, drifting through life without a care in the world, is always better than walking.
As an adult, though, I never go to waterparks anymore. Does anyone? Be honest. I know being nineteen and barely in college doesn’t really count as adulthood, but, even still, it’s been a decade since I’ve gotten to visit one. If I’m being honest, it feels a bit like a piece of me is missing, you know? Like I left the kid in me in a lazy river down the road and never bothered to pick it up. I don’t know, maybe it likes it there—that part of me, I mean. Floating down a lazy river for a decade? Doesn’t sound like the worst way to spend that time; it’d be better than how things are, at least, living in a world of walking and carrying, and then resting from days of walking and carrying. I guess that makes me jealous. That’s kinda silly.
Anyway, sorry, I’m being depressing for no reason.‘Cause guess what? I’m here! Look ma, I made it! Specifically, I made it to the Great Escape. In case that name doesn’t inspire either awe or mild disappointment in you, allow me to elucidate. The Great Escape is a grand theme park that nestles into the mountains near Lake George, the fount of envy for any driver going up Route 9, or even stretches of the I-87! They’ve got roller coasters and fair style rides, of course, but the water park toward the back is really why you come. Well, it’s why I come. This place used to be a Six Flags property, but I’m pretty sure they’re going out of business so now some other park conglomerate owns it. That’s kind of exciting, right? Maybe it’s how I worked up the strength to drag myself out here.
I’m standing on a stucco bridge that passes over Route 9, like the ones they have on the strip in Vegas. The Steamin’ Demon, a pretty impressive looking coaster with upside-down sections, looms over me, yellow and blue metal sparkling in the sun. A soft breeze rises up the side of the bridge before pouring over it, streaming past me. For late June, almost July, it’s really quite nice out. The summer has been hot as hell so far—hotter than all its predecessors and cooler than all its successors, as climate change normally goes—but today is nice. The sun’s rays pass through our crippled ozone only to land on me like a hug, a weighted blanket that squeezes me to comfort. It’s a welcome change to actually feel the thing, instead of watching it arch across the sky through my window day in and day out. Well, welcome in the moment; if you put me back behind that window and in that bed, there’s no way in hell I’d let you drag me out. Summertime can get a little rough.
Despite the ideal day, Great Escape doesn’t seem that busy. I pass through security and the ticket check in less than five minutes—aided by the wonderful apathy of a worker who doesn’t appear more than twelve years old—and, suddenly, I’m inside! It’s a bit odd: I’m almost certain that I’ve been here before, it being the biggest park that’s close to my hometown and all, but I don’t recognize any of it. The entrance seems to be themed to an old German or Dutch village, tall pointy houses housing a few shops that sell crap they found on AliExpress for double the price. Behind these, the park opens up a bit. Light gray concrete paths wind further into hills, rides and stands peppered throughout. There’s a river here, but it is not lazy. It is green and dirty and full of algae, although a miniature train passes a horde of children by it as if it’s some kind of attraction nonetheless. This is why I like my nature behind glass; algae doesn’t even grow in lazy rivers, or, at least, not quickly enough. I sneakily stick my tongue out as I cross the bridge that brings me over the green river and leads me to my beloved. Take that.
On the other side of the bridge, I see it. My eyes immediately lock onto the marvel before me and I am entranced. It is not looming like the Steamin’ Demon, nor repulsive like the green river, but marvelous still in its unassumedness. A few slides, a splash pool for the kids, a couple hot tubs, and, of course, a lazy river winding itself around the waterpark. It is an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, a creature of infinite beauty. The lazy river is a creature, you see. You can see it in how tubes and their passengers loop through it, carried by the lazy flow. It is at once the movement of breathing and of digestion, a sustaining thing native only to life. The new owners have decided to name it “Adventure River.” This is stupid—lazy rivers are meant to be lazy, not adventurous—but a quick glance around confirms that the adventure isn’t exactly present. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Quickly, I grab a clear inner-tube and dodge through children to get in the water. They’re congregating around the entrance—little shits that they are—because the water is apparently too cold to get in all the way. They are uncultured. How can they not understand that the cold water, which isn't even that cold by the way, is the perfect counterpart to the heat of the sun? Harmonies may sound odd when divorced from their melodies, but, together, they are much greater than the sum of their parts. Before I can lay back in my inner-tube, though, something catches my eye. A middle aged man without a swim shirt is sitting down in a hot tub a few dozen yards away. I watch his eyes lull and his posture waver, although only slightly. My mother always told me “don’t stay in a hot tub too long or you’ll get too comfortable and pass out.” This man is clearly playing with fire. Well, not my problem. I’m busy gettin’ lazy.
I sit back, and the river takes me away. I become part of the crowd of fattened tourists, weaving ourselves into one large mass. Don’t get me wrong: I’m just as fat as the rest of them. It feels good to finally feel the weight of my body lift off the ground, giving my femurs a well-earned break. No more walking and carrying. Until I have to get out, at least. That’s a thought for another time. The “Adventure River,” if we must refer to it by its government name, is entirely acceptable. It’s mostly made of a light blue concrete, formed in an oblong oval with some mild twists. The water isn’t particularly deep, which is annoying, but they have gone out of their way to vary the speeds and the textures of it—some mild rapids, a few waves. It’s a touch I don’t often see, and is appreciated. There’s a set of filters on the northern edge which keep the water clear. Assuming you aren’t min-maxxing runs—which you shouldn’t be doing—a trip around takes maybe ten minutes. The view isn’t impressive, or particularly inspiring, but it functions. In general, really, it functions. It scratches that itch that’s nagged at me for years. Seven and a half out of ten.
Soon, I’ve completed my first lap, and am at my first decision point. Around me I see slides and pools and fun—a waterpark to explore. But that’s not to say I’m not having fun right where I’m sat. And well, honestly, I’m not really sure I want to get up right now. The sun shines down on me like a heat lamp, oppressive, maybe, but regulating as well. I choose to stay, judging those who make a more cowardly choice from afar. Their exit sets me loose from the pack, leaving me a space in front of the next giant mass, alone to drift as I please. It’s a marked improvement. Here, alone, I am allowed to think. I float on the current, flowing through the route I now recognize, and close my eyes to be alone with myself. We’re a dynamic duo, me and myself—when neither of us are being dicks, that is. I think there’s something cultivating about the gentle river and how it cups me in its arms. It makes it easier to think. Easier to be alone. Perhaps that’s why I love them so much. A normal river could do this, sure, but not without slamming you into rocks. There’s no such threat here, and so thinking goes uninterrupted.
I open my eyes again, not quite ready to keep them closed yet. Beside me, another tube has broken loose from the pack, bumping against my own. The tube is empty—that’s probably how it caught up to me—aimlessly wandering infinitely through the river. Eventually someone will pick it up and put it back in the stock, but that may take a while. For some reason, when I see it, I’m struck with the idea of rapture. That the tube’s previous owner didn’t abandon it on purpose but simply disappeared, ascending to heaven and leaving their plastic ring behind. I know I need to stop sympathizing with objects, but that is kinda sad, no? I reach out to try to grab it, but being unwilling to move more than my arm, it slips from me.
There’s a splashing sound behind me, loud enough to get my head to turn. A member of the pack behind me stirs, eyes flicking back and forth like he’s looking for something. Whatever it was must not’ve been that important, though, because he too can’t be bothered to get up from his tube, and he ends the search quickly. Maybe he’ll find it next loop. I turn back to the river. The curve I soon reach has tall fake foliage on its wall that’s intended to block visitor view of the wavemaker that lays just behind it. When my eyes round that corner, though, something about the river has changed. Of the group of clustered bodies that’d conglomerated in front of me, fifteen or even twenty percent were missing, replaced only with empty inner-tubes. What? What happened to them? It’s only been a few seconds, right? My eyes flick to the remaining pack, only to find them uninterested and lazy, as any good lazy river goer should be. They’re calm. Suddenly I feel silly. That whole group looked pretty tired earlier, so I guess a few of them just got out to take a nap or find a chair. Cowards. Did I really think they got raptured? I blink, and, for a moment, my eyes don’t open.
Lap two finishes, and with it lap three, and with that lap four. Have I been here for forty minutes? Every time I pass the entry point, I watch coward after coward disembark, hanging their heads as they go. Still, the majority remains, adrift in an ecstasy only provided by the lazy river. I wonder if they feel the sparkles that dance along the top of the water or that their mind's eye is suddenly clearer or that they feel like they can breathe again for the first time in a month, like me. I know, at least, that they feel the weightlessness. They wouldn’t be here otherwise. Even the dead sea cannot provide a feeling of weightlessness like this. Here it is controlled and pristine and doubtless. No, this may be the only place in the world where doubt fades away. Self-doubt, sure, but also their doubt in me. I am without it now. We all are, I hope. My face itches, but I do not raise an arm to scratch at it.
Across the waves I can see a woman out of the corner of my eye. I’d be able to see her better if I could be bothered to tilt my neck, but it doesn’t really matter. She’s tired, I can see. Her irises are glassy and gray. The lids hang like guillotine blades ready to drop. I can see her chest and her stomach rise and fall with breaths far enough apart to mimic sleep. She closes her eyes, and disappears. I blink, though my eyes open immediately this time. Sure enough, she’s gone, replaced by a small pile of ash that quickly sinks into the water and is broken up and carried out through the vents. She… died? I mean, no—this isn’t what death looks like—but… I don’t think she’s coming back. I strain a hand in her direction, and it feels like I’m lifting a mountain. The appendage falls, splashing against crystal water. My eyes peak upward, neck barely able to lift an inch from its plush plastic rest. The man in the hot tub is slumped over, face in the scalding water.
I want to get up, I want to move, I want to flee. But, let’s be honest. No, I don’t. Five, fifty. Six, sixty. Seven, seventy. Eight, eighty. I watch more and more of them go, fading away into the bright light. My skin feels like it's merging with the plastic beneath me. An oppressive heat welds us together until I am sure we’re inseparable. I think about thinking about protesting this, but the thought ends before it begins. People join the river, and while most cowards leave after a lap or two, some of us stay. I wonder if we knew this would happen when we reached that decision point so long ago. I wonder as a man fades away in front of me if it’s nice up there. I wonder if there’s a lazy river. A small smile crawls across my lips, fighting with gravity, and I close my eyes. For a moment, it’s hotter than it was before. Then it feels like nothing.
