Land of Bliss and Shadow

 

 THE POND OF DOOM A flamingo sunset spreads over the Everglades. Walter sings with happiness and wiggles his toes on the wet lilypad that gently floats in his home pond. Mating season is here! He can feel it in the balmy air. Taking a deep breath, he puffs up and sings as loudly and as enticingly as he can, for there is a female on a nearby lilypad that he has fixed his sights on. She is a beauty, with a green-gold slimy hue and shining golden eyes so enticing he can barely contain himself. But how can he reach her safely? The deceptively tranquil pond is full of nocturnal perils below, above, and all around. Friends and rivals have disappeared one by one, mysteriously and not always silently; sometimes with a scream or a gurgle cut short, then silence. Once, he saw part of a leg much too like his own floating past him, bodiless. Just yesterday – Walter shudders at the memory – a familiar blue eyeball bobbed in the water trailing sinew and gore, turning black and dull as he looke...