If you were a good friend, he would tell you he is scared. He would continue to stare, as if searching the forms of individual leaves in the silhouette of trees on the other shore, and he would tell you he is scared because, since it happened, he has felt nothing. He might tilt his head up, the reflection in his eyes brighter than the one in the moon, and he would be silent for minutes, many, until his quiet melded them all into a moment, his moment, his control. One moment all his, you both would know it, so you are sealed, it was his creation, it shall be his destruction, a sensitive pity to give him control one last time.
"I feel nothing. I fear I’ve ended up killing myself. If there were guilt, I would be natural, wouldn’t I? If I felt vindicated even, that would be natural, yes? Human? I feel nothing." Silence again. Nothing to say. You might focus on the circles expanding towards you, some night-owl bug foolishly frolicking through this time. You could almost smile, but that would be dangerous.
A thought: latch on: "If you fear, you feel. There’s a long road yet, friend. This is nowhere to get stuck."
He would look at you, then. Blinking rapidly. Down, smooth the sand – how strange, sand here, but it happens – sparkles from tousled quartz hitting his chin. More moments. The wind picks up, you might glance at him, the long straight blond straw of his head blowing into his face, leaving you patterns to interpret. Just as good. Clouds pass in and out of light, brighter themselves than the purple-painted sky, these gray blobs delivering drizzle in small, measured doses, speeding up, many circles now.
"So I feel." More. And more still.
"Yes. You feel. Isn’t that good?" The patterns fall to shadows as his paleness faces you. Now you would be scared.
He would say nothing, but you, being a good friend, would guess at thoughts. The fear of constant fear, of nothing but, of lumpy throats with aching dryness and slickster wetness, of stomachs that rumble themselves to hemorrhaging, of eyes that are already changing, losing that nothing something everyone recognizes only in absence, lost not through deed, but through dealings with deed, his panic, more circles now, more moments, too many, it’s not natural. It is wrong, and you both would know it. Just never say it.
But you are not a good friend. Only his voice echoes into the water. There is sometimes greater sanity in sounding wildly alone than in babbling sanely to another. The silence remains the same. He wants to leave, to run, he splashes the lake, but the coldness catches, he’s not ready for this, and he finds a sodden log, collapses upon it, crushing wood fibres together, squeezing the sponge, down to head to knee to hide to silence.