The Current

When you're a kid you usually have a favourite lake, pond, quarry etc. which is secluded and beautiful. Our's was a lake we simply called "The Pit" because there was no trees or grass, just sand and a small body of water the size of a football field but wider and it has a unusual blue colour not usual for Canadian waters and as time wen't on we found out why. The mountain of slag on the far side of "The Pit" after you hopped the fence was from our local mining company and the tale told about this small body of water was that far beneath the ground there, a series of mining shafts and tunnels were being made and the workers hit a spring and it was so huge the earth opened up and all the tunnels and shafts filled up with water and many men died in the tunnels and shafts. The horror story is that the current will drag you under if you try and cross it but I started going there when my friends and I were 10 and by 12 I had crossed it many times as the guinea pig but really I had a death wish and was a total nihilist. My best friend Cory and I would either steal liquor or money to buy it and get drunk and cross the Pit all day and smoke cigarettes which turned to joints when we were 14 and around 15, 16 up until our late teens it became our small cities inner most party place because we would tell everyone at the arcade and school to bring a lot of couches, fire wood, kegs, liquor, loud stereo speakers and DJ, a generator, girls and of course the main course of salad in every strain. There were so many places to hide with girls that almost everyone lost their virginity there. After school you could imagine going to the arcade and handing out all the posts made in class to be at "The Pit" for sundown and Cory and I would fill my pick up with the nearest couch I could find from a street from the burbs, 2 kegs 2 sleeping bags; extra large for day's when the Thompson twins got drunk enough to both get with me, and then meet at the forks near the point to see how much gear everyone with vehicles had and whenever we were short we would send a geek to get the rest of the previsions and get to "The Pit" and get ready TO PARTY! We had some good times there but that isn't the story you think in your head. We didn't get drunk and someone had an accident and drowned during a party thank God but we stopped going there because someone did die. It was a normal day and Cory, some friends and I were all at the Pit and everyone was drinking and talking about the rumours about this small body of water and one of the stories was that our old folks made up the story about the current being too strong and reasons why they surrounded the water with a huge fence. People say there's no current but if you disrespect the miners who died there by pissing in the water, the dead miners spirit that died there will pull you under to your death. That day about 3 hours later we all were really drunk and almost started running away because a grown up was on the mining fence entrance on the far side of the Pit but then we saw his dog and he was just doing what we were minus the drinks. So, we start puffing a joint and see the guy jump in with his dog and all of us were feeling no pain until someone say's "That guy's not there! Did any of you see him come in?" And I look and see his dog in the middle of the Pit and right away I know the time frame isn't right and that he's under the water drowning so I run in and everyone else sees me and like a team of drunken Life Guards we all start for the dog in the middle and it takes us it felt like forever to reach the dog because common sense tells you he must be right there and as we all are diving under I'm the iron lung who can dive the furthest and as my ears are ready to pop and the pressure from decompression is telling me hes dead and I command everyone back in to shore before someone loses their breath or worse. So, everyone swims ashore and the girls are all crying and us guy's feel responsible in way's you could imagine and we call the local ambulance and fire department and report it in and all of us are scared sober waiting for the guy to pop up out of the water or the ambulance to hurry but I never told people why I didn't shed a tear until that night. It was dark and I was in Cory's back yard and he asked me, "Why didn't you say much back there? You're usually the voice besides telling everyone to get back ashore. Why were you so silent?" And I said, "You promise not to tell anyone?" He say's "Of Course Not." And I said "Cory, I broke my record in deep diving. I'm not bragging but I have to tell you something. I got so deep the light was almost gone and I saw fences on top of mining machinery and dead bodies in each of them until something grabbed my leg down there and I freaked out and swam to the top and told everyone to go in. I think it might have been him but I was so freaked out because of the scene, I swam to the top when something grabbed my leg instead of looking behind to see what it was I freaked out, swam to the surface and grabbed his dog as I didn't know what else to do. I hope that was the current or even a zombie because if it was him and I swam to the top without making sure he had my ankle tight, then I'm guilty of manslaughter right?" And Cory said, "No man..you're no killer or coward. You were swimming across that haunted lake your whole life. I'll tell you what that was. That guy got in the water and needed to piss and let it go and disgraced the dead who died there into punishment. You know the curse. It's as old as the first mine shaft ever made here. Don't pee in the water!" And I said to Cory, "Well, no current will ever bring you under because they laid out fencing covering the whole entrance to the shaft and there is no current, just the dead bodies trapped in their machines." And no one ever swam across the "Pit" after my story became known as "Foggy Waters curse."