Guy--Part Thirteen

Splog # 44

Thirteen

   At least, it wasn't clear like water. It didn't really have a color to it but it just didn't look right. And when she reached the basin and looked in, her senses were overwhelmed by what she saw.

   The water in the fountain seemed to be swirling with images. She could see them sliding down the horse's sides but could make no sense of them until they landed in the basin and started floating among the ripples. The first image that came to her clearly seemed to be a hand clenched into a fist but with the forefinger jutting out as though pointing at something. As the hand and finger became clearer to her, she tried to see if there was more to the image. She tried to discern whether the hand was attached to an arm. It was difficult amid the myriad of vague images that were rising and falling and swirling around in the water. The hand started sinking and something was passing over it. It was long and thin and almost looked like an eel swimming in the water. Trying to keep the hand in sight so as not to become lost in the confusion of images, she saw the long form resolve itself into a chain composed of many links. The color of the chain seemed to shift from gray to silver to gold over and over in different sequences. Sometimes it looked as heavy as an iron chain used to hold a prisoner and sometimes it looked as light as a piece of jewelry. Then she saw the finger come rising up from under the chain and the chain wrapped itself around the wrist of the hand like a bracelet. She looked to see if more of the hand would be revealed. The hand started drifting to the right dragging the chain behind it. There was an arm attached to the hand and she was hoping to see a body and possibly recognize a face when a pig walked over the hand and arm, pushing it to the bottom. The pig was very clearly visible. It was composed of a light brown color that seemed to stay constant and was moving as though to a definite objective. It stood out from the other images by its clarity and she couldn't help following it with her eyes, when its ears and legs began to elongate and, before she knew it, she was watching a donkey moving in the same direction as the pig. Then a large crown, golden in color, with many opulent jewels decorating it, drifted up from the depths and floated over the donkey's ears and settled itself on its head. The donkey began to dissolve and suddenly she was looking at clocks. That was all there was to be seen. The cuckoo clock from her house was there and the pocket watch that had belonged to Will's father. A large grandfather clock was spinning around and around. Something made of stone floated up from the bottom and she realized it was a sundial. Then the chain that had been wrapped around the hand came floating by again. It was moving sinuously and truly looked as though it were swimming like a snake. Then she saw that there was something attached to it. It might have been a pearl if the chain was a piece of jewelry or it could be a heavy ball if the chain was meant for a prisoner. As it neared, the round object blossomed into shades of blue and green and she could make out a globe of the world like the one in the schoolhouse. The globe came to a halt in front of her, even though the chain continued drifting on its way. It was so clear that she started to reach out her hand and touch it. Then the globe started to spin. It spun slowly as a real ball might do suspended in water. But as it did all the color started to fade from it. The blues and greens got lighter and lighter and turned to gray. From gray they faded to white and then even that vanished into transparency.

   After a short time gazing at where the globe had disappeared, the woman realized that she was staring into clear water. There were no more images swirling around and her ears told her that nothing more was gushing from the fish's mouth. The fountain was now merely a still pool.

Suddenly the woman felt drained of all energy. She walked across the path that circled the fountain and dropped down on a bench where, on other days, people would sit to watch the water at play on the stone menagerie.