Before seven, the water is still flat.
Before seven, the lagoon is flat. The wind hasn't arrived yet — it takes another two hours. What you see from the dock is an uncomfortable mirror, the kind that confuses the brain: sky above, the same sky below, a line of jungle between.
If you paddle out at that hour, you cross the lagoon without sound. Occasionally a heron appears at the shore, still, looking nowhere in particular. It doesn't startle if you pass close.
By eight the wind begins. By nine it isn't the same lagoon anymore. But for a while, for a long hour, it is.
If you wake up early — even once in the whole trip — that's the lagoon you'll remember.
