The Pond

The little boy once hated his room in the country house. The room in the country house meant he was sick again, meant loneliness and needles, doctors and bland meals. It was a prison to him.

Then something changed. This time, his parents moved to the country house with him. His mother was there every day, reading to him, letting him play with blocks and read stories to him, cuddled him at night and brought hot cocoa before bed. His father visited in the afternoons and evenings. They spent the visits talking, or his father would tell him silly jokes until he laughed so hard he got the hiccups.

The little boy loved that his family was there and treasured their visits. However, there was one thing that frustrated him. He couldn’t understand why his family couldn’t see the pond outside the window. It was frozen over, blue and green hues under the ice that danced and moved under the grey skies and bleak light that graced its surface.

Every time he talked about it, his family told him it wasn’t there, he wasn’t seeing anything. They would shower him in hugs and kisses and presents afterwards, and then tell him to forget about his illness, that they would always love him.

He’d also tried to tell the doctor and the nice nurses that came to him and washed him, checked his breathing, and talked to his parents in low tones. They would smile sadly, or just turn away. After a while, the boy gave up on trying to tell the grownups what he saw, and simply indulged in looking at the pond. After all, it was special, and a part of him didn’t want to share it.

Sometimes, the pond was normal. It sat with the lonely oak tree to the side of it, leafless and boring. Animals would sometimes walk or run by the area or stop to see if they could drink from the pond, licking the ice carefully.

Other times, the pond was magical. The sun would hit the surface just right and dance, sending rainbows dancing into the air, making the boy gasp and lean forward in his bed, ignoring the pain in his lungs and stomach. The colors would play in the air, gracefully twirling and bobbing in the air. As the sun moved, they would vanish slowly. The boy would then sit back, gasping for air as his lungs clenched and seized in his chest.

At night, the pond became more mystical. Creatures the boy had never seen before would come out and walk along its icy surface, graceful and slow. Most of them were elk and deer, but they were not normal deer, like he had seen in picture books. They had humanoid faces, and moss and ivy hung from their antlers like baubles from a Christmas tree. Their coats were covered in spots that looked like wild mushrooms.

Birds would swoop down and sit with the strange deer. The birds were longnecked and flew with an elegance that made the boy think of angels, swooping down to convene with magical beasts to maintain the balance of good and evil. The boy wished he could go out and be with the mystical creatures, on his frozen pond.

***********

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Thompson. The cancer has reached his spinal cord and traveled to his brain. Sam will not recover from this illness.”

The boy’s mother looked up at the doctor. Her eyes and hair were both dull, with a deep grey sheen. Bags lay under her eyes, and her cheekbones jutted out, skin hanging from them like old parchment. She had lost so much weight to the pain and fear for her son, to sleepless nights and fights with her husband.

“Nothing can be done?”

The doctor shook his head. He hated telling the parents news like this, and he had told so many since the nuclear incident twenty years ago.

“Unfortunately, the chemo would kill him. He cannot even maintain consciousness now, and I doubt he could withstand the pain. The only reason why he does not hurt now is the morphine we have given him.”

“But his eyes move. He opens them and they move back and forth, like he’s watching something,” Mrs. Thompson said, looking at her son, prone on the hospital bed.

“I know. He may be dreaming, perhaps. Or the cancer is causing hallucinations. We cannot be sure.”

“Is he in pain?”

“He might be in some, as the dosage of morphine wears down before his next injection,” the doctor admitted. “Either way… his quality of life will not improve. All we can do is keep him like this and move him to a more permanent bed.”

Mrs. Thompson sat in silence for a bit, then stood and walked to his son. She took his hand and watched as his eyes opened and he stared up at the cinderblock wall, eyes dancing back and forth. Something in her heart broke, and she turned to the doctor.

“When is the next dose to be given to him?”

“One hour.”

“Doctor… may I give him to dosage? I trained as a nurse. I know how to handle a needle.”

The doctor looked at her carefully. After a moment, he nodded.

“I will trust you to give your son his medicine. The nurse will deliver it and then leave you be.”

She nodded and the doctor walked out of the room. Mrs. Thompson then turned back to her baby boy. She wondered what he saw, if he could wake up and tell her, and decided to let him be. His last memories would be of his hallucinations, not of his mother letting him go.