Pool in the Desert

I've lived in the desert for a long time so the only time I see water is when the rains come. So you can imagine my surprise when I stepped out of my home one morning during the dry season to find a pool of water ten feet away from my front door. I knew there had no reason last night and yet right here in front of me was a pool of water. It didn't make any sense. My dog who had been behind me pushed his way past my legs to go jump in the pool and when he did he simply disappeared.

I startled back watching him become completely submerged in the water. I waited for a moment and finally called him "Rosco come here!" Nothing happened. I called him again and again. Finally I worked up the nerve to walk over to the pool and look in. When I did I saw nothing but crystal clear blue water seeming to go down into the earth for eternity. I started to reach out to it but a sense of uneasiness made me stop. Instead I went back into my house and grabbed something I knew would float.

I came back with a rubber duckie and placed it on the water making sure my fingers didn't touch it. The duckie started afloat for a few seconds and then it sank. I was able to watch it sink for a little while then it faded from my view. I started tearing through my house finding anything and everything I knew that would float and brought it out. I tossed item after item into the pool with the same result each time. The item would float for a couple of seconds then it would sink. I would look in and watch it disappear after about ten feet.

I didn't get any work done that day since I was messing with the pool. I fell asleep thinking about the pool and poor Rosco. When morning came the first thing I did was call for Rosco and then remembered the pool. I went outside to see if it was still there and indeed it was. Alongside it though were a number of other items. A book, some toys, and a bottle. I hadn't thrown any of those items into the pool yesterday so I was admittedly quite confused.

When I picked up the bottle I realized that there was a note inside. I went back into the house and found a pair of tweezers using them to slowly pull the note out. The note itself was written on parchment paper that felt thin and brittle in my hands.

I slowly unrolled the paper and began to read it, 'To whoever finds this note please understand that what I'm about to say will sound crazy but I swear it's the truth. First I would like to say thank you for the dog. He's been quite sweet to me which has been a godsend since I've had no one kind to talk to for over three hundred years. In this madhouse of time and space where all the trash of the universe ends up. Things come in but not much can leave. Anyways, I need your help. I think I might have found a way back home. Your dog should be able to fit into the pool from my end and I'm going to tie a rope to him. When he comes out, take the rope and pull me through. I'm hoping with the extra force of you pulling on your end I can squeeze through. Wait for your dog.'

I sat there staring at the piece of paper trying to wrap my head around what I had just read. That pool was a hole that went to the trash heap of the universe. A man had been trapped there for over three hundred years and was looking for my help to get back. He seemed pretty put together for a man who had been alone for three hundred years. But for all I knew while he somehow knew that much time had passed it only seemed like a blink to him. I had no clue what he was really talking about but I figured if Rosco came out of the pool with a rope wrapped around him I would pull on it.

I spent the next week staying by that pool day and night. I set up a small tent near it so that if Rosco came through while I was sleeping I would be close by. Other items started coming out of the pool day by day. Some were corpses of animals, others were books that looked to be ancient written in languages I had no ability to decipher, and finally on the eighth day a person came through. The person wasn't all there physically. It seemed like the trip through the hole had taken their arm and their mind.

The man was gibbering in a language I didn't understand but he was wide-eyed and terrified. He finally seemed to recognize I was there and he grabbed the collar of my shirt tight screaming at me. He saw the piles of books near me and started clawing through them. He stopped on one and opened it going through page after page till he finally stopped. He turned the book to me showing me an image of a being of many angles surrounding a ball of light. I don't really know how I would describe it besides that. After he showed me the image he collapsed and with a rattling scream he died, the light in his eyes fading away.

I was left rattled wondering what had just happened. The book was still open to the image the man had wanted to show me. I looked it over again and found a caption below the image 'Angelus'. I grab my cell phone typing in the word. It meant angel in Latin. I was confused by this thinking of the images of people with wings. I started to investigate further only to find that in the older text of the Bible this was how angels appeared. Beings that today would be considered something Lovecraftian in nature.

I continued to wait by the pool spending every waking hour now investigating older interpretations of angels. That these beings struck terror in men due to their appearance. That them coming to Earth was often a sign of something bad about to happen. I couldn't believe what I was reading but the memory of that man was scarred into my mind and I couldn't shake that there was something to this.

After another week passed Rosco finally came back through the hole. When he did he didn't seem quite right. His eyes were out of focus and he didn't bark, he just walked forward straining himself with a rope that had been tied around his body. I remembered the note and I stared at Rosco debating with myself about what to do. Rosco had reached a point of tightness on the rope where it was cutting into him. Normally he would be whimpering and stopping but he just kept trying to walk forward the rope cutting him more.

I decided I couldn't let him suffer any longer and I grabbed the rope and began to pull on it. I could feel the rope slowly moving whatever was on the other side was starting to come through. My muscles were burning but I kept pulling no matter what. Suddenly the rope went slack and I fell backwards onto my butt staring up. Above the pool now was a being like what had been in the book. A small sun burning and blinding me though I couldn't help but stare at it. Surrounded by rings that somehow had sharp points on them. Angles that started and stopped from nowhere and yet everywhere all at once. Lights shimmering in every color I knew and at least another dozen that I didn't.

The being swiveled itself and looked at me. Don't ask me how I know that I just knew. It spoke it's voice all around me and inside of my head reverberating to the point that I thought my skull would crack open. "Thank you, frail creature. For your kindness I will spare you and your creature from the harm that is coming."

I reached my hand out to it crying out because I knew no other way to speak in this presence, "Why the letter? Why did you lie like that? Aren't angels supposed to be virtuous?"

It spoke again, this time I began to weep uncontrollably for its voice sounded angry, "Nothing I said was a lie. I was trapped in that trash heap for so long. I told you three hundred years because for you that's how long it would have been. But for me I experience time differently. It's been eons since I was put there. I was meant to herald the next stage of the Earth but Father stopped me. He said that you beings would come around. That you would fix yourselves. But Father was wrong and I have come to lead humanity to its next stage. Now be gone, frail creature. Live your days in peace."

With that it turned from me, I no longer felt as crushed by its presence. Then a horn sounded in the distance shaking the earth under my feet and as I looked up into the sky I saw gates opening. I wept and held Rosco tight. He licked my cheek and I couldn't help but still smile even in the face of what was coming.

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