The Phenomenon at Derby Pond

A strange phenomenon is occurring. Many ponds throughout the world appear to be frozen to a minority of people, even though they are not. For this thirteen percent of the population, the phenomenon is disrupting their lives. It's causing division with those who question their honesty and sanity, as well as jealousy of those who wish they one of the rare people who can see the frozen ponds. Derby Pond is one of these ponds, and I'm one of these thirteen percent.

It's August 8, and it's ninety degrees outside. Still, through my eyes, Derby Pond appears to be frozen solid.

My friend Joe looks at me, saying, “I call bull crap. I don't believe that the pond looks frozen to you.”

As much as I want to prove Joe wrong, I can't. The illusion can't be captured in photos or on video. The pond always looks normal in them.

The only way to prove what I see would be to step onto the frozen ice of the pond. Those who have done this vanished and never returned. Nobody knows what happened to them. I'm not willing to find out just to prove Joe wrong. Knowing him, he still wouldn't believe me.

There is much speculation about what happens to the vanished. Some people think that the frozen ponds are portals that lead to the underworld. Other people believe that they lead to paradise. Social media has exploded with people claiming to have vanished and returned. They tell wild stories about where they ended up and what happened to them.

I wonder where I would go if I stepped onto the ice. I wonder if I might find myself in a world that doesn't feel so foreign to me. Ever since the car accident, nothing feels right. My memories were altered as a result of my head injury and being in a coma.

I don't have classic amnesia. I remember everything, but I remember it wrong. My mind is full of false memories.

I clearly remember the day of Mom's heart surgery. The doctor came out and told me that she had come through it beautifully. I even remember her squeezing my hand and smiling when she woke up, too weak to speak yet. In reality, she died during that surgery.

I'm told that my personality has changed too. I lost some of my friends because of it. Rachel claims that it's like an invasion of the body snatchers and says that she wants her old friend back. I don't remember my personality ever being different than it is now.

Stephanie never knew me before the accident, so we don't have that problem. She claims that my false memories are due to the Mandela effect. She loves conspiracy theories and anything supernatural.

She's coming to visit this weekend, eager to find out if she's one of the rare thirteen percent who see a frozen pond. Knowing her, she'll step onto it immediately if she is.

Tiffany has been my friend for longer than anyone else. She's my soulmate in every way besides romantically. We joke about our shared brain. She suffers from memory loss due to Lyme disease, so we understand each other in a way that no one else can understand us.

We're so connected that we even nearly died at the same time. I was driving to the hospital so I could be there when Tiffany came out of surgery. She flat-lined at the very moment my car was struck by the semi truck. We unknowingly hovered near death at the same time. Thankfully, she was resuscitated and I came out of my coma three days later.

Tiffany sees the same frozen pond that I see. We sit on the beach nearby, talking for hours about where it might lead to. We've imagined ourselves stepping onto the ice together. It's fun to imagine, but I know we would never do it.

Stephanie arrives late on Friday night. She has to see the pond right now. She can't wait until morning. We drive there in the dark, bringing flashlights with us. She practically runs out of the car, fully expecting to see a frozen pond.

“Eve, it looks normal to me,” she says, full of disappointment.

“Does it still look frozen to you?” she asks.

I shine my flashlight at it. I see a glowing white haze all around it that I've never seen during the daytime. Suddenly, I see a glowing white shadow gliding gracefully over the ice.

“What is it, Eve? What do you see?” Stephanie asks frantically.

“I see Mom,” I whisper, with tears in my eyes.

“I see Mom ice skating on the pond.”

“Don't fall for it, Eve!” she exclaims.

“Its aliens projecting images into your mind!”

I ignore Stephanie's wild ideas and treasure the sight of Mom. Soon the image fizzles back into nothing.

On the car ride home, I can tell that something is bothering Stephanie. Even though we've only been friends for a month, I have a strong intuitive connection to her.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“I'm just frustrated that you can see the frozen pond and I can't,” she vents, sighing.

“It's not fair. You don't even believe in the supernatural. It's my jam. I should be one of the chosen few, not you,” she giggles.

“Rachel said she believes that only crazy people see a frozen pond. She knows I see it,” I laugh.

“Shut up! Did she really?” Stephanie asks, laughing.

By the time we reach my apartment, the mood has lightened considerably. When I fall asleep, Mom is in my dreams. She's ice skating on the pond.

She holds her hand out to me, saying, “Come. Follow me.”

Just then, Stephanie wakes me up.

“What's up?” I ask, trying not to seem annoyed.

“I have to try stepping onto the pond, Eve. If I believe with all of my heart, maybe I'll get to see what the chosen people see. I thought you might want to come with me since I might vanish.”

I agree to go with her. Nobody ever wins an argument with Stephanie. I don't believe that her plan will work, but I humor her.

We arrive at the pond and she hugs me goodbye. She stands on the bank of the pond, takes a deep breath, and tries to step onto the water. To her surprise, her foot just sinks into the water and gets wet.

Trying to hold back laughter, I say, “I don't think you should try stepping onto the pond with both feet.”

She rolls her eyes and sighs, then we both laugh.

“Oh fine. I just had to try,” she says, still laughing.

After Stephanie leaves, I find myself drawn to Derby Pond every night. Every night I see the white haze around it, like a force-field. For just a moment, I always catch a glimpse of Mom ice skating.

I tell Tiffany about it as we sit on the beach near Derby Pond one afternoon.

“Tiffany, I have to know where it leads to. I believe Mom's trying to tell me something. I feel like she's calling me to join her. What if she's alive in some other world, and this is my chance to see her again? I can't live with not knowing.”

“I can't live in a world without you in it, Eve,” she says, a tear streaming down her cheek.

“Let's do it together.”

“We'll never be in this world again, Tiffany. Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. Let's just do it,” she smiles, standing up, reaching for my hand.

I stand up, take her hand, and we walk the short distance to the bank of the pond. A few people are fishing nearby. The small crowd watches us, whispering to each other, ready to take videos on their phones.

Tiffany and I smile at each other, both placing our feet onto the solid ice of the frozen pond.

In the blink of an eye, it's snowing. A cold wind makes me shiver. I let go of Tiffany's hand, which feels like a block of ice. The small crowd skating on the ice of Derby Pond stops, erupting into cheers as they see us standing there.

Mom skates over to me so quickly that she nearly falls. She sobs, hugging me tight.

“I knew you would come back,” she sobs, kissing my cheek.

A little boy slides over to Tiffany, hugging her leg.

“Mommy, you're back!” he yells, excitedly.

Tiffany looks confused for a moment, then gasps as the memories flood back to her. I remembered Marcus all along. Everyone insisted that he was one of my false memories. Tiffany never had children, they said.

“Of course I came back, Marcus,” she says, scooping him up into her arms, feeling nothing but warmth in spite of the freezing weather.

Everything is so surreal. It seems too good to be true. I push Mom away gently.

“No, this is just another dream!” I cry.

“This isn't real. You're going to be gone as soon as I wake up,” I sob, knowing that the illusion will end like it always does.

I know that soon I'll wake up, once again, to a world where Mom no longer exists.

Mom hugs me gently.

“You're not a ghost. You feel so real, Mom. I can feel your arms around me,” I whisper, still crying.

“It's not a dream this time, Honey,” she says in a shaky voice, as though she barely believes it herself.

“Let's go inside and I'll tell you everything,” she wraps her coat around me, since I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

Tiffany follows us, holding Marcus close.

Mom's house looks exactly how I remember it on the day before my accident. I had been told that it was another false memory. The house had been sold after she passed away.

My head spins, wondering which version is reality, and which is the lie. If this is the lie, I still like it better.

Mom serves us hot chocolate, telling us the whole story.

The large hadron collider at CERN malfunctioned, causing parallel timelines to briefly converge. Anyone with a loose grip on life in that small moment was displaced into the other timeline. It happened the moment Tiffany flat-lined and I fell into a coma.

My “false” memories aren't false after all. They're all true in this timeline. The timeline we just came from is an alternate reality. The seasons are reversed in that reality, which is why it was summer there and it's winter here.

The frozen ponds act as beacons to lure displaced people to them. They created wormholes that could teleport people back into the timeline they came from.

Mom had seen brief glimpses of me at the pond, just as I had seen of her. Neither of us should have been able to see each other through the veil that separated us.

While Stephanie exists in this timeline, we've never met each other. We became friends in the other timeline. I miss her, and I wonder if we could become friends in this version of reality.

I search for Stephanie Lewis on social media. She's easy to find. Her main photo says, “Question Everything” and her page is filled with conspiracies and the supernatural.

I click the button that says “Message User” and type, “I know you don't know me, but I thought you might know something about the Mandela Effect.”

She answers immediately, “Yes!!! Do you know anything about it? By the way, your profile picture looks so familiar. Have we met before?”

I smile to myself. Someday I'll tell her the story of our friendship in an alternate reality.