Carolina Pondlife

by

David Michael Conner

Into the still pale warm green water dropped almost imperceptible spores from the Spanish moss that hung high above in the branches of silver cypress trees whose silvery bark looked dark, dark gray in the dark gray shadows they cast over the body of water. Tangles of the silver-gray moss hairs tumbled down like subdued circus acrobats, one grasping another’s feet in his hands, the ends of bent strands being the hand-end and foot-end parts of the acrobats; the hand-and-foot extremities were darker than the core forms, being full of blood, bags of dark, still, warm blood, still and warm and pooled around brittle bones or the brittle bones of decrepit Spanish moss that appear alike whether wet with life or desiccated for use in dried flower arrangements that old ladies keep in their homes.

Small houses ringed the pond in observance of the life that flourished in the dead-looking swampwater. Two elderly sisters stepped out of their elegant home into the backyard, marking each step carefully in their flat-heeled shoes to keep from misstepping on nutshells or mushrooms or the droppings of waterfowl, and to keep from falling onto the foul gently-sloped shore of sand that graduated in tonal value as it approached the clear water that shifted slightly against the ground, slightly shifting the tiny three-lobed duckweed that floated on the surface that shifted in the eye of the casual observer from a clear hard varnish dotted with green specks to a greenwater stew infused with algae.

Two mallards bickered near the women’s house and one male stretched out his stubby wings and leapt upward and then pounced among a clattering cluster of brown-striped yellow ducklings, scattering fuzzy down to the dirt . One of the women scurried toward the ducks and quacked at them to behave.

“Oh, Edna, those drakes are determined to kill every last one of the babies. They’re just awful,” she said to the silver-haired sister.

“It’s nature, leave it alone,” said Edna. The other woman stamped her canvas-covered foot until the ducks took to the water.

“Not in my backyard,” she said, waddling in brisk steps to the water’s edge. She bent her old body down to the ground and picked up a small pinecone and threw it into the water. “Silly old ducks,” she yelled. “Oh, Edna, look!” She pointed to the middle of the pond.

“Oh isn’t he just beautiful?” her sister remarked, observing a splendid white egret that stood out in the middle of the dark pond. Skylight came down through the trees in thinspread shafts that shone through the humidity and settled as irregular goldenforms on the calm place where the water met the sky or glittered across the surface in shining, sideways-leaping sparks that came and went from being into nothingness. Small bubbles of gas from unseen life or decaying organic matter disturbed the stillness. Expanding concentric ripples interrupted each other, flowing from bubbles and from ducks or the surfacing head of a snapping turtle and the twiggy legs of the egret all around the pond, lending life to the dead-looking water. The egret took to flight; it looked like an angel with its wide-spread white wings made of long powdery feathers, or a Zoroastrian seraph that captured the women’s hearts with a spinning wheel of wings, ascending heavenward, an angelic ancestor in animal form, its gentle power reinforced by a piercing beak and pedestal legs and sensitive balance over a thick tree branch. The bird loomed overhead like a swaying cloud amidst the dead-looking Spanish moss. It laughed heavenward as the earthbound and treebound lichens and mosses and funguses lived struggling lives off shallow light and heavy decay.

A duckling strode to the far end of the pond noiselessly as the old ladies gazed; they both imagined being able to glide across surfaces as they had done in their youth. ‘His little feet are busy under the water, though,’ thought Edna, and she squinted to get a glimpse of the bird’s webbed feet, but he had strayed too far. ‘The turtles haven’t gotten him so far; maybe this one will actually grow up. Life used to be like that for us all,’ she reminisced, ‘Sam, Clyde, they were lucky to have made it as long as they did, bless their hearts. And Louise and me—to live to such an old age! a blessing or a curse?’ and then she was distracted by a hollow crack from her hip and rustling of pine needles underfoot, but not under hers.

The young woman who had moved in with the family next door was out in the adjacent yard picking among the small garden plants. “Oh, what a shame,” she said, looking at the ground but possibly aware of her elderly neighbors.

“What’s a shame, Honey?” asked Louise as she moved toward the younger woman.

“Oh these damn—oh, sorry, Miss Weesie—these darn flowers didn’t make it.”

Louise moved closer to inspect while Edna had walked to the bed on the other side of the house where the old duck nest was. “Oh, well, no wonder, Dear, look what you planted here?”

“What do you mean?” asked the neighbor. The white egret swooped from its branch and softly settled onto another; she looked out into the water, then back to Louise.

“Well, Chrissie, you know you can’t grow bulbs down here near the water?”

“No, why?” asked Chrissie, darting her eyes back and forth between Louise and the great bird.

“They’ll rot,” said Louise. “Now see your irises here? The Dutch ones and the bearded ones, they’re probably not going to make it, though maybe you can salvage them if you dig them up and move them now, and give them a day or two to air out in between. But the Siberian irises, and the yellow flags, and the blue flags, they like the water and they’ll probably take over your planting bed within a few years.” But Louise noticed Chrissie wasn’t paying much attention and looked out at the water. “Isn’t he something?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, Miss Louise. I was watching—”

“The egret, I know. Isn’t he something? Just magnificent.”

“Oh, yes he is beautiful, but I was actually looking at the moss in the trees. Isn’t it beautiful, how it blows and sways in the wind?”

“Isn’t it?” Louise said.

The growing duckling that had earlier caught the sisters’ attention was now about to make landfall having safely glided another lap across the pond. He yapped a triumphant little quack, and the women laughed. A bossy mallard charged toward the adolescent duck and startled him; he started backward, but balanced and took many little quick steps forward and made enough noise to silence the larger adult. Louise clapped and Chrissie called out a wordless cry of celebration that sent both fowl scattering to the pond, sending ripples every which way.

“Oh, dear me, ha ha,” chortled Louise, “I believe we scared the little things.”

“They’ll get over it,” answered the young woman.

Louise gasped. Something hit her in the back of her head; it ricocheted forward and she saw as it was falling that it was a small pinecone. She turned her stout body around and saw her older sister standing on the deck. “Oh, you never grew up, did you!” Louise teased, then, turning to her neighbor she asked Chrissie to throw something at Edna. Chrissie said she wouldn’t and that she actually had to go study but thanks for the advice on the plants and then she went inside. Louise clambered back up the gentle slope to the deck stairs on which sat a plastic planter molded into the shape of a swan and containing an overflowing bunch of pink and yellow begonias with frayed petals. “That girl has got a lot to learn,” Louise said, looking up at Edna, who was leaning over the railing.

“Oh, she’s a sweet thing,” said the sister.

“Yes, but she’s very inattentive, Edna, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed that.” Louise was pulling herself up the steps without much grace at all.

“She’s young. She moves quickly. She has a lifetime to be still and pay attention.”

“You old bird, I know who you’re talking about,” said Louise as she mounted the summit and rebalanced herself on her unsteady legs.

The duckling was still in the water, still active, gliding from spot to spot without any clear direction, though he sometimes saw something interesting enough from his clear bird’s-eye vantage point above the water to dive under and disappear for a few minutes, but his flowing movements went unnoticed by any person. The people meandered indoors as aimless as wildlife in their own wilderness of painted walls and carpeted floors without natural elements to slow them into observance or pools in which to reflect.