In The Pond

I remember when I was eight years old, something happened that I never told anyone about. I don’t know why but I have decided at 45 that I finally wanted to tell someone about it. The experience has, well, haunted me to this day. Although haunted is the wrong word. Maybe I should say, encompassed. Yes, that’s the word. It has encompassed my mind for the last 37 years.

It was in the middle of one of the toughest winters my town had seen in over a decade, that was, according to my mother. Looking back on it, I'm sure it was around 25 degrees that day but I insisted on going outside. I remember my mother looking deeply concerned but not wanting to fight me on it. So, she grabbed my coat and scarf and wrapped me up tight. She put my boots on me to make sure they were tight enough then she took my mittens out of my coat pocket and placed them on my hands. She gave me a kiss on the forehead and told me to be safe and not talk to strangers. I was a friendly child so this was a challenge for me.

I remember giddily trudging through the snow as I made my way to the pond down the street from our house. I was picking up snow along the way and making little snow balls and throwing them aimlessly into the street. When I approached the pond, I walked around it and spotted a ball. I made an attempt to run toward it but the snow was too heavy for my little eight year old feet to get through, so I drug them through the snow as quickly as I could.

When I picked up the ball, I looked up and turned my head and saw an older man standing on his front lawn shoveling the snow by his porch. He smiled and waved at me and I smiled big and began to wave but then I remembered my mother telling me not to talk to strangers so I quickly looked away.

I began to repeatedly throw the ball up into the air and catch it when it came back down. When I caught the ball the last time I threw it up into the air, I held on to it and started off toward the pond; I still do not know why I decided to go toward the pond that day but I did. I threw the ball into the air and I made an attempt to catch it but it landed on the pond.

I looked at the ball for a moment while I contemplated what to do. I looked up and saw the man still in his yard; he looked at me and gave a nod. I didn’t respond. My eight year old self hadn't thought things through properly because I thought it was a good idea to step onto the ice. I had the ball in my sights. I made an attempt to tread lightly on the ice; not taking steps but gently and slowly sliding my feet across the ice as if I were skating. Then suddenly, I heard a cracking sound and I turned around to see the ice rapidly cracking behind me then suddenly I was plunging into the water. I was kicking and splashing around in a panic. Then something strange happened; I kicked something. It didn’t feel right under my feet. Then I heard water sloshing around me and I got even more scared because I didn’t know what it was that was in the water with me that day but I knew it shouldn’t have been there.

Suddenly I stopped panicking as I saw something floating in front of me. It had wide eyes and a big face. It was silent as it waded in the water staring at me. I put my hand out to touch its nose and as soon as I laid my hand on it, I heard the sound of yelling and I felt myself being pulled up by the back of my coat out of the water.

As soon as my face hit the cold air, I let out a loud hard breath. Then suddenly I was on the grass wrapped in a large blanket. The adults around me kept asking me if I was okay or if I was hurt. I was in a state of shock at that point. Once I finally snapped back into reality, I told them my name and where I lived.

The people who had rescued me from the water that day were EMTs and it turns out the man across the street had apparently seen me fall through the ice and called 9-1-1. Everything that happened after the EMTs took me to the hospital is as much of a blur to me now as it was 37 years ago. However, one thing that will never evade my mind is that creature in the pond that day. I went back to the pond after it thawed in the spring, with my parents of course. My mother was terrified to let me go anywhere alone after that. I tried to look for the creature in the pond but I never saw anything after that day. I wanted to tell someone about what I had seen but I knew deep down that no one would believe me because it was just a pond, right?