Pond Lake Ocean

Pond Lake Ocean by: Stephen Koons

This is the tale of a fortunate man. Tim Brontey is his name. He had imagined leaving morality, forgoing the legality of good and evil. One rewarding day in the flowering state of Pennsylvania he jumped aboard a train, headed into Philadelphia. He tapped his head, forlorn and strange habit, stroked his hair idly and gazed out the window.

He set down his backpack in the neighboring seat. Few were on board, and not one had acknowledged him. He at first felt indignant, and then miserable in the grips of loneliness. Then he gained a mindless glare, wore it to see trees pointing limbs into the gray sky. He loved someone, and thought with benevolent regard about those who may receive donations, prayers for wellness, would know the kind charm of comforting life.

Meanwhile, in a motel west of the city a woman is gazing into a mirror. Her hair is glossy and she is venting the hot air off her flesh, out of the shower. Throwing on clothes, she ponders the value of married life, of tame and predictable couple-dom.

Harry Waite, sitting and waiting, watching the television display something news-related calls out to Dira, in the same motel room. He wants to order a pizza, wants to get outside and smoke a cigarette on the balcony. He gets up and starts to do that, sliding a glass door. Rummaging into his pocket, he brandishes a smoke and a lighter, looks up and puffs.

“There might be a football game on.”

Dira is a considerate sort, wanting for others to enjoy life, priding in their interests, appreciating that some men like athletics.

“Thanks, almost done this.”

Harry responds, procuring his cell phone to make a pizza call.

Ghostly City

There are rats squealing, chasing chunks of food in their community squalor. At the bar there are delinquents, citified workers, and generalized bar-flys, wearing plaid, sipping and chugging, some attentive to the television, some with glazed stares.

Police syrens, amidst noises of chatter, TV announcements, commercials. It is like being home, but there are hours of service, and the knowledge that one must leave by 2 AM, to crash on beds, to linger and waltz the drunken cant into a room for rest, peaceably so. Jack Rivers is there, ignoring his cell phone, indulging in only one beer. His friend Martha Gates is about to arrive and things will soon change, uncannily.

Suddenly the room seems to falter into a new scene, Jack at first thinks he is getting a beer buzz, but this will prove different! The walls take on fuzzy hues, and like dripping paint he feels moist and his throat begins to throb.

The hum of nature can be heard as a profound change takes place, he is in the middle of a round frozen pond, with thrushes, frogs croaking, and an overhead fiercely blue sky. Hearing the noises of a human singer, these are the words :

You’re waiting for the night to end

You want to drink and then suspend

Your drinking that you shall sleep

But under ice quite deep

Is a treasure you only will find

Jack is still half aware in the bar, his head cocked to the side, mouth open in a gape. Martha approaches him and begins to speak.

Suppose you’re getting old. Prompted by the flickering projected images in the city squares. Taking a break for a meal, thinking about work and the efforts pulling in cash requires. Money is something you haven’t had to think on much growing up.

A stony creature , a giant of some sort. It’s roughened hands extend bony fingers. Wading off into a tempestuous ocean.

The Art Exhibit

Jack and Harry are about to meet by chance, at an art exhibit in central Philadelphia. They don’t know each other well but in school were similar sorts, party buds. As the military recruiters in the sixties made their rounds, both of them were scared, however. Harry suffered from poor vision, he failed the recruiter’s test. Jack drew the number and also escaped by luck. So the sixties would be a time for the two to live it up. They did so, through the seventies, eighties, and nineties.

Friends and family created the haven, along with the all important reliability to love, or to socialize, and to feel a belonging.

Hanging on a purple wall, colorful art, things demanding attention, well made, depicting animals, fruit, and a frozen pond that progressed in the next frame to a lake, hedged in by the same trees, and then an ocean, proud, choppy water, sand, and a night sky

The two men stood and then made hand gestures to each other.

“Jack, greetings,” said Harry.

“How are you Jack?”

The two related on various modern topics for a minute or so, then described how they felt about the paintings. Both remembered school days, whimsically recalling teachers, the black top play areas, and there was Vietnam, that wretched war.

Jack and Harry discussed things like being married, like the partying they had enjoyed, and how their kids were growing up. Multi-racial souls walked about, then came champagne and some smug, uppity women in fine dresses.

“So would you like to get together?” Jack asks.

Harry is brought to attention, turns and nods.

Back at the train-station, the brown structure with a green wooden roof, Jack is about to board. Screeching tracks and electric release, meandering crowd of city folk, heading back to the suburbs.

Meditating on the evening, the sights and sounds, his vision of the woman, Jack will indeed find treasure.

Under the ice, a pond, a lake, an ocean.

The End