Memory Pond

I keep all my memories in my memory pond. They fall in when they’ve been completed, like flowers that grew on trees, bloomed and passed and now just petals to remind you of what was. They swirl around; gently, peacefully, but coiled and tense, like a fish preparing to strike, rearing up when agitated.

My memory pond goes through the seasons. It’s winter when I sleep, when the pond is frozen over and the memories are halted. My dreams skate across my pond, carving themselves into the icy layer, to be thawed and melt away when I awake.

I remember in the fall. When it’s windy, it’s autumn, and my memories are stirred from sleep, the water coaxing them to the surface. Sometimes, my memories get trapped under rocks, and they tear away, leaving spaces in memories that I can’t seem to fill. Sometimes they mend themselves, sometimes they don’t.

The algae comes in the summer. It blooms, great and big and suffocating in my memory pond, trying to trap my memories beneath it. They sometimes break free, bursting forth but tainted green--tainted with algae, with envy, with anger, with love, with all-consuming emotions I can’t tame.

My memories come in the spring, when they rain into my memory pond, or blossom into flowers. Then my memory pond fills up, and I have more things to remember when it’s autumn again.

My memory pond is full of things, and I never lose a thing in it. Spring is the most common, fall the most important. Winter is the most whimsical, and summer the most powerful. I never forget a memory; it’s only tucked away under a rock in my memory pond, but it will come in time, and then I’ll remember in the fall.