Seattle Press on Line

Pond

By Adam Crowley

Jul 04, 2002 -- "Is it, is it still down there, Lawrence?"

"Don't know." Damn, but it was hard to hear anything besides the woman's questions and stupid breathing - not to mention that her oxygen machine needed to be fixed or oiled or have whatever the hell done to it that needed to be done to oxygen machines when they started to go soft around the nozzle and squeak like that. It needed to be -

"On the bed, Shelia."

"Is it -?"

"Get on the bed!" Lawrence cried, struggling to his feet. "Yah got to -!"

An explosion: ice and timbers blasted through the shack, followed by an enormous splash - and then silence, save for the frantic lapping of waves, which sounded a bit like laughter.

"Lawrence!" Ramming her cane against the beer cooler, Shelia hoisted herself off the floor.

"Lawrence, is it -?"

But Lawrence Gunderson, husband of Shelia Gunderson, father of Moe and Diane Gunderson, grandfather of Tiffany-Ann Peasly, wasn't around to answer any more questions. Indeed, where Grandpa Gunderson had stood a moment before, there was now only a burbling gash, upon which a hunting cap floated like a dead goldfish.

"Oh," Shelia said, her voice a gentle wheeze.

Part of Sheila wanted to run out onto the pond, run all the way to the shore where she would be safe - even though Lawrence had said they couldn't do that. However, something else, something not entirely describable...

a smell

...pulled the old woman towards the giggling waves.

The water swelled, and the cap drifted away. Shelia swore as her cane splashed down on nothing. Her fingers, numb and frostbitten, slipped off the iron crutch.

"Drat!"

Propelled by that same indescribable need, a need that was quickly evolving into an all-consuming desire, Mrs. Gunderson crawled around the edge of the hole, hoping to catch her husband's chapeau on the other side.

As Shelia crawled, a large bubble broke the surface of the water, and then another, and then another. As the bubbles disintegrated, they transformed into ripples that carried the cap closer, closer to Shelia's trembling digits. Smiling hugely, she snatched it up.

It was then that she noticed the eye, inches below the flotsam and detritus sailing across the fissure.

"Oh -!"

A huge lid sliced across the eye, ejecting slush and wood splinters into the ice shack, drenching the widow of Lawrence Gunderson.

Waving the cap above her head, as if to signal her surrender, Shelia began to scream. "Go away. Go away, please!"

Once more, slowly, almost coyly, the eye blinked.

"Please -!"

And in that last second before the beast's beak broke through the slats and pierced Shelia Gunderson through the middle, the old woman looked into the eye, looked deep, and saw nothing, save for a murky reflection of her own quivering jowls.

Adam Crowley is a novelist and short story writer who lives in angor, Maine. His fiction has appeared in The Maine Review and The Stolen Island Review. His play Flying Solo with Mr. Loto won the Roger C. Hamlet prize, and his short story My Boy won second place in the Steve Grady short fiction contest. His first novel received the distinction of highest Honors from a group of English Professors at The University of Maine. His second novel was completed in March. At this time, Mr. Crowley is seeking a literary agent. He can be reached online at adam_m_crowley@hotmail.com.

Reader Comments

Discuss this article in the forums!


chuck thompson	Sep 23, 2003	boston	student
this story is very interesting, the metephors were used perfectly. i found the story a bit eerie, in a good way, kind of like a mild ghost story. very well written, from a wannabe author


chuck thompson	Sep 23, 2003	boston	student
i posted the above comment, and it occured to me the part about the wannabe author could be interpreted in the wrong way, crowley, is a talented established author, what i meant, is that his writing is inspiring to me, who is a wannabe author just so there is no confusion