"I was a taciturn, dreamy child, doing my best to get a leash on life." "This life I'd been given and I didn't know what to do with." "That spring, my parents had sent to my county cousins." "I was the only child and I had to fill up the long, monotonous days." "All around me life was bursting forth." "Even the gnats seemed to know their business." "Swallows shot through the sky like arrows." "Snails traced their shimmering way through the grass." "But my own feet seemed aimless." "I'd always enjoyed watching animals." "They bade me to live as I pleased, to forget the passing time and make the most of each moment." "With them, words were useless and that suited me, not being one to open my mouth even at home." "All animals fear humans." "I shared the same fear." "It united us in a sort of secret alliance." "With them, I left behind the enigmatic adult world." "I'd devise games to pass the time." "I'd spend hours in the farmyard watching feathers float in the sunlight, or, in the field behind my cousins' farm, the feathery seeds of goats beard, like interstellar tall ships sailing through space, as in my sci-fi comic books." "All that flew took me far from this pale world beyond the clouds." "One day, one of these "space ships" led me out to a pond outside the village." "Idle Pond was named after the tiny stream that supplied it with water." "They say that long ago a goat had drowned here." "Farmers wouldn't water their cattle here." "This wild, abandoned spot became the setting of all my daydreams." "It lured me, yet scared me because of the goat whose body lay at the bottom of the murky waters." "I came back, day after day, like a moth hovering around a lamp, fascinated by this fragile pool, an island lost in an ocean of dry land." "The water's wavy mirror sent back unsure images of the world around me" "which I tried to decipher." "An upside down, floating, blurred world of shifting reflections." "Fish between two waters seemed to fly through the clouds, slip among the branches." "For the solitary child I was, the theater of still waters was the vey stuff of dreams." "One day, in my pocket, I found the gift my fabric merchant uncle had given me for my birthday" "A small one with two superposed lenses bulging like a frog's eyes." "I found the pond to be the ideal place to exercise the talisman's power, a talisman that dispelled boredom and drew out treasures wherever its power was turned." "My uncle used it to gauge a fabric's fineness." "And me, I used it to discover whole planets in a drop of water." "I called it my "Indian eye."" "With it I could see what others couldn't imagine, all the minuscule signs hidden within things." "My kingdom wasn't so big, yet I couldn't begin to imagine its population." "I didn't even know what some of its inhabitants looked like." "When I looked at it carefully, it seemed vast to me and I began to give names to its various regions." "There was Tadpole Beach," "Floating Buttercup Gardens, the Sunken Forest, the Sargasso Sea with its tangled gulfweed," "and in the middle, the depths of the abyss, dark as the deep woods, where the little goat had foundered in the shifting silt." "On one bank lay the blue-green land of irises, whose pointed leaves crossed like swords." "Their tips swelled with huge buds." "I imagined the golden flowers that would soon crown them like princes." "I loved the cloying odor of warm mud that told me the pond was near." "One stifling hot day, when the air didn't stir, and no refreshing puff of wind blew," "I noticed that the water was never still." "Something moved across the magic mirror of water." "Tiny creatures..." "Yes, the bugs made the pond's skin constantly quiver like a horse's skin tickled by flies." "The pond exuded a fathomless beauty." "What unfolded before my eyes in this abandoned spot was like a reflection of the entire universe." "I was witness to a ceremonial that seemed to obey an eternal protocol." "I loved the beauty and the violence, the harmony and the chaos." "I didn't know the names of most of the creatures I saw." "They looked like little deities, so perfect were their colors and gestures." "No doubt I had a place in this dizzying roundelay, but for now I was content to sit and watch, like a wallflower at a dance." "The same day offered me wonders and tragedy." "There were the devourers, the devoured, but no good guys or villains." "Just creatures obeying their nature, simply going with the flow of life." "I could have saved some of them, but the thought didn't occur to me." "I feel at ease in this place forgotten by man." "This place from which he can derive no profit." "People don't like wilderness." "It is useless to them." "Worthless." "The pond is a secret spot, an unknown land, like those uncharted territories left blank on world maps of old." "Here everything remains possible." "Today I told my cousins about my aquatic paradise, showing them the treasures" "I'd gleaned." "Throw that rubbish on the dung heap!" "Wait till your mother sees your torn pockets!" "You like animals?" "Leave that vermin alone." "Go see the cows in the field!" "Someone has been here." "My sanctuary has been desecrated." "Someone walked on the bank, trampled the mint and picked the irises." "I love this spot." "I can't bear someone wrecking it." "I can't look at the grasses along the bank now." "But below the surface, everything is still untouched." "No one could get there." "That is where I want to dream." "A little girl lives in this house." "Her family rented it for a few weeks." "They keep to themselves." "Now I know who stole my irises." "She must've followed me in secret and found the path to the pond." "Anyhow," "I don't need some girl underfoot out there." "One day there happened by the young king of England" "Heydee-ho, dilly dingadong" "One day there happened by the young king of England" "With one stroke of his sword the damsel he did slay" "Heydee-ho, dilly dingadong" "With one stroke of his sword the damsel he did slay" "Where shall we lay to rest the beautiful princess" "Heydee-ho, dilly dingadong" "Where shall we lay to rest the beautiful princess" "Under the lilac bush in her father's garden Heydee-ho, dilly dingadong" "Under the lilac bush in her father's garden" "She came back, but touched nothing." "However, she left her crown in the grass." "I named her Iris, in memory of the flowers she took." "Now, when I reach the pond," "I wonder if deep down I'm not looking for signs of Iris." "But today, nothing." "Nothing but the still water, and amid the weeds, the dance of the crested newts." ""EARTH"" ""HEAVEN"" ""POND"" "I didn't notice them right off." "I'm sure Iris crafted these dolls." "I like them." "But I prefer my pond as it was before." "Iris." "She's stopped coming." "She probably didn't like my removing her dolls." "Or else she got tired of coming here." "It's just me and the pond now." "The initial enchantment is gone." "I spent a fitful night." "Maybe some fever after the hours out in the sun, not moving, studying every detail of the pond, as if to etch it forever on my memory." "My cousins told me about a village eccentric who worked when he pleased." "A hardened bachelor." "He knows a lot about nature and wildlife." "So you like critters?" "At least you'll never be bored." "When you watch them unawares, time stops and you forget to breathe." "But the thing is," "people don't like others roaming around the fields." "They think you're trouble." "I've known Idle Pond since I was a kid." "I know that there's a carp in there this big, that's older than me" ""The Centenarian " I call it." "It darts off under old stumps as soon as it hears footsteps." "I'm sure it's still there, and there to stay!" "I so hoped to see Iris again by the water." "But it's a grey day." "I doubt she'll come today." "My eyes are tired of looking for her." "My gaze strays across the deep, cold waters, into the realm of shadows that hides things I've never seen." "I long thought that lending my pond was a most generous gift, and I hadn't dared respond to Iris's offerings." "She freely decorated my kingdom with her inventions." "I must give her something." "I decided to give her my Indian eye." "This morning I rose with the sun and ran to the pond." "It's the first time without my Indian eye." "Maybe giving away my talisman has blinded me." "It's a beautiful day." "Hundreds of strands of gossamer fly by." "Time seems to stand still." "That day, I experienced the exhilaration of feeling alive, of sharing that gift with the plants and animals." "The morning light poured over me like a beneficial rain." "I seemed to be coming to life after a long slumber." "The pond had become my homeland." "Here I'd found the place that suited me best, that spoke a language I could understand." "Later that glorious day, forgetting the shyness that paralyzed me," "I decided, since vacation was ending, to bring Iris another gift." ""CARP" "LENS"" "Iris had left with our secret." "All I knew of her was the name I'd invented." "We'd hardly seen each other." "But nothing in me was the same." "From that point on," "I knew I wasn't destined to be lonely." "That my way of seeing and feeling things could be shared by others." "Even today, when I smell the scent of damp earth, the memory returns of those intense hours spent beside the still water." "Water that had awakened me to the world, to wildlife and that other self I recognized in the girl in the poppy-red dress."