The Rocks at the End of the Lake

Joseph Bottum, in Drifting Toward the Rocks, finds an interesting metaphor for life, and a lesson regarding complacence, in a trip to the lake with his daughter.

Then the man on the inner tube awoke with a shout as the rocks brushed his feet—sitting up suddenly, too hard and too fast, so the inner tube squirted out to flip up in the air behind him and dump him with a splash into the shallow water. I think it must have been painful—those broken stones down at the end of the lake are sharp—and he yowled, scrambling along on hands and knees after the inner tube, trying to stand up and stumbling each time as the rocks sliced at his tender feet, before he finally caught up with the spinning tube and surged across it, belly first, puffing like a loud and startled walrus.

Read the whole thing.