The Man Who Lives in the Calder Pond

It was 8 a.m.  My art education class had just begun when Kati instructed us to relocate to the little “pond” near the Calder dorms.  We were to situate the stick animals that we had just assembled the week before around the pond so that they could be photographed in a natural environment.  As we were doing so, I noticed some of my fellow peers actually descending into the pond.  The act itself did not register as peculiar; it was the fact that they didn’t come back up after they were engulfed by the water.  Suspicious, I too decided to wade into the pond with my stick figure.  What happened next could not be rationally explained.

I found myself in a maze of wooden balance beams suspended over open water.  Platforms were frequently placed throughout the maze and a huge forest resided on the outskirts of this natural environment.  I was joined by five or six of my classmates.  We began making our way toward one of the platforms when we noticed that the water below was that of tropical origin.   Sharks, stingrays, dolphins, thousands of fish species, and even whales occupied the shallow body of water.  One unbalanced move and it was likely that the fall would yield traumatic results.

All of us finally reached a platform where a small cabin was situated.  The cabin reached to the lower depths of the pond without penetration of the water supply.  It was at this time that an old man greeted us.  He was of medium height, slender, gray-haired, and suited to hunt.  He explained to us that he was “The Man of the Calder Realm,” and that he had been guarding these woods since the building was established.  He then told us that his mission was preserving the prestige of nature that surrounded him, and that he had worked hard accumulating species over the years to fill this environment.  As I further surveyed the area, I noticed in the forest that elephants, tigers, lions, horses, peacocks and hundreds of other species were roaming.  The man sat us down and an odd assortment of materials appeared before our eyes: animal fat, paint, marble eyeballs, etc.  He told us to use the materials to turn our stick animas into “real” animals.  After we were finished, our fake animals were not easily distinguishable from the real thing.  We thanked the man and decided we should probably make our way back to the classroom.  But as we were exiting something unexpected happened.  The animals surrounding us began ripping apart our stick animals, thinking that they were real prey.  We tried our best to stop them and for whatever reason, used verbal communication to try to fend them off.  Yet, they were quite persistent in their attempts.  Finally we knew that we had to make a run for it.  We started up along the balance beams, being careful not to fall or let the animals knock us off in an attempt to indulge in our animals.  We finally reached a point that we knew to be the exit and returned to Kati’s class with a little more than what we had bargained for.

Scooby Doo and the Rapist

It was an unfamiliar house, a house made out of wood.  I was in a closet on the third story of this house, trying desperately to close the door, but there came a point where I could not try anymore.  The door made too much noise.  Breathlessly I stood, mangled amongst clothes and shoes that threatened to take my balance.  I knew that my sister was nearby in another closet, but the chance of reaching her was almost as vague as the chance of getting my heart to beat more softly.  I knew exactly what I was running from; she was more naïve.  All I could do was hope that he would not find us.  He was a rapist.

I anticipated the sound of footsteps, a sound I knew to be inevitable.  Then they came, approaching the door that was on my right, outside of the closet.  I stood stiff.  I didn’t want to breathe because I knew the slightest sound would provoke suspicion and then discovery.  I could hear him approaching the closet door, his hand on the edge about to push the door and hinge it open.

My mind thought two things:  I could either remain still amongst the clothes in hopes that they would hide my presence; or I could dig myself deeper into the interior of the closet.  The former seemed a probable discovery.  The latter, which to a logical person would seem completely irrational given the dimensions of the closet, seemed completely plausible at the time.  So I pushed even further back into the closet.  It was only then that I fell into a large laundry chute with a playground slide attached to break by fall.

I ended up in a small cellar.  My sister was there as well, as I somehow knew she would be.  At the moment we seemed safe, but I had a feeling that we needed to start running.  We turned to our left and a small tunnel out of the cellar appeared.  We hesitated for a moment, but his hesitation was broken by a crashing sound coming from behind us.  It was him.

We both broke into a sprint, my sister trailing only slightly behind me.  He was mere feet behind her.  The tunnel that we started off in led up to a street, a dark and endless sea of pavement.  And then as I was running, it happened.  As in so many of my dreams, I suddenly lost the ability to run fast and to see clearly.  As hard as I tried, my legs would only extend in slow motion and my eyes could not focus on anything around me.  The pavement flashed tiny specks of inconsistencies in the stones.  I heard a car pulling up to the left behind me.  The sound of a van door opening and closing gave me both inklings of hope and fear for my sister, but somehow hope seemed more probably.  Then I heard the same van pulling up alongside me.  I was hesitant to look over.  Something told me to just keep running (or at least to attempt what I thought to be running).  Something else told me that help had arrived.  Finally I looked over.  What I saw was not only surprising, but utterly ridiculous: an animated version of the Mystery Machine.  Without taking a second glance behind me to see where he was, I jumped into this 70’s classic.  Everything went white, and I knew that we were now safe.