The Legend of the Old Pond at the Edge of Civilisation
By Sura K. Hassan
The courtyard finally loses its vibrant colours. Bright green bleeds into yellow into orange into a crumbling brown until finally, the last leaf falls to the ground. A thick blanket of snow envelops the yard, the guesthouse and the village she calls home. For now. The locals warn her. It’s not safe to walk outside at night. At least not until the solstice is over. But then they whisper the legend of the old pond at the edge of civilisation; how a witch once bathed in it; how she could summon the dead; how she cursed the pond when they burnt her—
Misha walks towards it. It’s not as big as a pond should be; more like a hole in the ground that could barely fit a few children. But, she admits, there is a quality to it. She’s not sure how deep it is. Curiously enough, there’s no sheet of frost coating it. Every other body of water in this corner of the world is frozen. But not this pond, and the possibilities elicit a trail of excitement down her spine. Could the legend be true? she wonders.
It looks like a portal to the centre of the earth. Or, perhaps it’s a tunnel to hell. In spite of the full moon, the pond does not show her reflection. It is pitch black and rivals a black hole, sucking the very essence of the world around it. Misha leans forward, inspecting it closely. Slowly, she dips her right arm in to see if—
She blinks. The water… is warm and murky. Almost as if—
She braces herself. The next part of her plan is a bit tricky, but if she concentrates, she can do it. Moments go by and then a familiar, cold, quiet rage flickers deep inside her. She takes a deep breath, focusing on the match of disdain she has lit, allowing its flames to slowly spread. It licks everything in its path and soon a wildfire of anger, pain and hatred burns through her body. It coats her ribs, her lungs, her entire chest, all the way up to her mouth until she screams the name of the person she despises the most.
Her eyes snap shut on their own as she starts to chant. Grinding her teeth, imagining what her pathetic, deceased excuse of a brother could possibly look like at twenty—
A cough breaks the silence of the night and Misha stares. Perhaps the problem with having an older sibling die in infancy is that you can never imagine them as an adult. Misha has never met her dead brother before, but based on pictures, she’s always imagined him as a baby. Maybe a four-year-old at most. She’s never imagined someone who’d look four years older than her; someone she’d positively detest; someone who—
Her heart drops. Her eyes prickle. A thousand pins and needles replace her lashes. Her brother is the very best of her parents. He somehow looks like her mother and her father and…
Misha’s mouth quivers. She lets the barricade of insults she’s prepared for this moment die on her lips. There is so much she wishes she could say. There is so much she wants to ask. The hatred inside of her extinguishes the moment they make eye contact. Suddenly, Misha is four years old and rediscovers her brother all over again.
She wants to—
She wishes she—
She should ask—
Her brother waits.
In the end, they talk. Of their father’s death. Of their mother’s new job. Of the little one’s education. Of Misha’s new school.
Her brother recommends that she keep her wild streak at bay. When she scoffs at that, he even has the audacity to reprimand her for visiting the pond to begin with.
Misha rolls her eyes. Somewhere between a breath and infinity, she forgets that she’s talking to a ghost, an echo from a time that never was. But he knows things. Like he’s been there with her this whole time, listening to every heated slight she’s uttered against his being, knowing every prank, joke or scheme she’s ever hatched, and for someone who’s desperately wanted a father figure her entire life, it’s too much. Misha loses herself in the moment.
It feels as though they have pulled the threads of time taut. Or perhaps, tangled them. Or maybe knotted two separate threads together, so that two different universes could stall amidst collision, giving them this one moment. Misha once told someone that the universe brought them together. But now, standing in front of her dead brother, she takes those exaggerated words back. For, in the present, in the dark night, on the edge of the black pond, it feels as though spacetime warped itself just to introduce them: the man she wishes she could be; the boy who will never meet his family.
The impossibility of the situation distorts her senses, breaking the trance. Her submerged arm turns cold, and then numb. Her brother sighs and Misha’s soul trembles.
This is the end. She will never see him again. She’s not sure if she’s even seeing him right now. For all she knows, her delusions have evolved into full-scale hallucinations. She’s so desperate for a man to protect her that her daddy issues have evolved into older brother issues—
“When you take your hand out, I’ll go away,” he tells her.
“What if I come back tomorrow?” she asks.
“It’s one dead relative once.”
“What kind of dumb rule is that?
“It’s a smart one.”
Misha nods, knowing too well what could happen if the rule didn’t exist. “Will I ever see you again?” she whispers.
“You’ll have to wait to find out.” His smile breaks her. For the first time, Misha notices how translucent his form is. When she takes her arm out of the depths of the pond, she watches her brother blend into the night.
Sura K. Hassan lives between two coastal cities, Karachi and Istanbul, and finds solace in the works of Paulo Coelho. Her writings primarily focus on relationships, personal mythology and identity with splatterings of adjusting to adulthood after a sheltered childhood. Her works have appeared in The Minison Project, Welter Journal and more. You can find her on Twitter @notsurakazan and Instagram @surakazan.