Blue Pond

Om Handa || Fall 2025

Rachel walks everywhere, even in a suburb with nowhere to walk. On an overcast summer morning, as the humidity hangs thick in the air, she walks along the side of the road. Motorists and truck drivers blare past her as she ambles towards the café. She orders a black coffee and sits at the table in front of the window. Rachel sips her coffee and observes the world unfolding in front of her: the passing car with its booming speakers, the trio of black crows perched on the telephone wire, the kids with their mother whose dull eyes remind Rachel of her own.

The outside world feels too loud. Rachel reaches for her book. She opens it not to continue the story but to return to the same paragraph that she’s been rereading for days. She reads the same passage over and over because the repetition soothes her. Sometimes she fixates on a single word, staring at it until her eyes burn and the word’s meaning dissolves entirely. The serifed font begins to read more like hieroglyphics than English letters. It’s at this point that Rachel becomes lost in her own mind. This is a happy place. All meaning becomes lost, and time and place no longer concern her. Her shoulders shrug and she lets out a sigh. This is truly a magic trick.

Her body, no longer in pain, dives gracefully into a blue pond. Not the type of blue that is more like a gray you have to imagine as blue, but blue, truly blue. She pushes with all her might, deep to the bottom. She goes deeper still, digging through the silt, and emerges into a forest. Beech trees, bathed in the yellow of autumn, surround her. Tears roll down her cheeks as she smells the sweet decay of fallen leaves and resinous pine sap that already clings to her clothes. Out of the corner of her eye she sees her brother hiding behind a tree, peering at her. She runs towards him and notices that she’s wearing her school uniform. Her hands are not tough and calloused but young and smooth. Just as she reaches her brother, the thud of a car door slamming forces her eyes open. She’s back at the café. This is what she’s good at: dreaming, ruminating in a way that is delicious and sincere.