Pond

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When I was a kid and my parents used to live in our first house, they decided that to increase the house’s value, they’d get a pond. Though that wasn’t what they told us, they just lied and said it’d look good. I must have been about 6 when they first got announced it, and for me it was like the second coming of Christ. Only better, because it meant I could have some goldfish.

My parents worked on setting up the pond; digging a big hole, lining it with thick plastic, getting a filtration system fitted and the like. For me and my brother that bit just happened whilst we played ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ on our Sega. When the pond was full we realised it was a bit lame. It was just a hole full of water. With a sprinkler in the middle. Our expectations of brilliance and majesty had been shattered, given we could just fill the bath or go and stand in a puddle if we wanted to be surrounded by water.

To make it a bit more lively, my Dad thought we should have a family outing to a gardening centre to buy some fish to put in it. This is where this pond shit got interesting. I remember being amazed by big plastic bins full of dozens of different coloured fish just swimming about and enjoying life. I ran past all of them, ignoring the prices and environments they needed and just shouting ‘I WANT THESE!’ Or things similar.

We bought a bunch of goldfish and a bunch of pond weeds to keep the water oxygenated. We got them home and introduced them to their new home, which they took to with fishy happiness. Or whatever nice emotions fish feel. That is if they feel emotions. Though this isn’t the forum to judge the emotional capacity of fish. Back to the story...

The excitement about having fish ended at about there. I named them after the characters in ‘The Magic Schoolbus’ and threw them some food. As it was a Saturday, there was no reason for my neighbours not to be at home, so I invited them all round to boast about how good my fish were to the rest of the road. Following the previous competition of who had the best computer, me having a pond made me some sort of Duke. Sonic’s life had lost meaning, as he watched from the window and sobbed.

A few weeks later my friend Leah came round, and we decided to play in the garden, making the most of the nice weather. After spending a few hours playing some bizarre game, I found two bamboo poles lying by the side of the pond. It was as if God himself had ditched his lamer-than-a-pond son and given us the perfect game to play.

We stood for a few seconds by the pond with the bamboo sticks dangling in it. We weren’t concerned about prodding the fish, we were having fun. The next half minute preceded something like this...

My Mum dragged me out of the pond and pulled all of my slimy clothes off, drew a bath and threw me in there to get the smell of algae and, probably, fish guts off my skin. Still baffled, I just sat there for a bit. I heard a doorbell go downstairs, and my Mum answer it. I recognised the voices; they were more of my friends from next door, asking if they could come round to play. Now, here is the difference between what well rounded, sensible parents and my parents would do in this situation.

I had no other choice but to sit in the bath with pond weed in my hair and be stared at like some sort of horrible swamp lizard in a zoo. My reputation of the Duke of the road had fell before me, as my own claim to fame had been the reason for me becoming a common folk. I like to tell myself that Jesus himself or Sonic pushed me into the pond. Or both of them. And that they now laugh in fictional Heaven at the memory of getting their revenge on me.