The Wreck of Hoxie Pond
by Delia Cullity
I remember breathing in the muggy air, tagging along behind a long trail of neighborhood kids with towels hanging over our shoulders like the banners of summer. We were lucky to live so close to the water; a short enough walk that we could go on ahead of our parents. At Hoxie Pond, we swam out to the wobbly dock to play king-of-the-mountain, looked for baby turtles in the reeds, and fortified the small beach with sandcastles.
My favorite game was to go diving, looking for the old rusted truck that was said to lie abandoned on the bottom of the pond. Our own sunken vessel to explore.
In contrast with the depths of the pond, the shallow spots were bright and beautiful, speckled with fairy moss, lavender-colored pickerelweed, and milky-white water lilies. The dichotomy between these two worlds fascinated me, and I had a recurring dream about following the long, winding roots of the surface plants down into the murky abyss to watch the strange shapes glide past each other in the dark. In the middle of this underwater kingdom, somewhere, was the old truck, red with rust and crumbling from neglect.
We went looking for it on the sunniest days when the beams of light granted an extra few feet of visibility. It was to the left of the beach-- or to the right of the dock. Maybe out in the deeper water. The truth of it didn’t really matter. We dove under and saw the glint of its cracked windshield and rotted tires, surfaced again to the animated questions of the younger kids who weren’t old enough to dive yet.
We created our own mythology, with the most popular story being about a man who had driven his truck out onto the frozen ice and left it there, confident in his ability to predict the overnight temperatures. It’s a classic conflict, man vs. nature; mechanical vs. biological. We return again and again to the same stories, reshaping the details to reflect our lives now and give us what we need to process the overwhelming events that life throws at us.
We need this ability to understand life through fiction. More than just entertainment, stories allow us to understand ourselves through the lens of the other. To deal with grief and pain and look at situations in a new way. Folktales are a reflection of the beliefs and creative power of an entire society. They transform and adapt as they are retold by different people with their own intentions and audience. Fairy tales allow us to confront our anxieties about nature and the unknown; tall tales let us imagine what we could be capable of, with no limits. Ghost stories carry the weight of the past with them. They help us heal with their strange, aching comforts. Our perception of the supernatural, the mystical, and arcane serve as guides for us to think beyond the surface level and confront our inner fears and desires.
New England, in particular, has always been a hotbed of stories involving the paranormal, many of them linked to bodies of water. Our coasts are dotted with haunted lighthouses, abandoned asylums, and the peculiar “marsh people.” Phantom ships roam the waters, and lovelorn spirits pace the crumbling wooden boards of long-forgotten bridges. Superstitious fishermen bring in fresh stories with their daily catch.
It’s our collective fascination with the unknown and the bizarre that brings us together to huddle around campfires in the dark. We dive into stories, searching for meaning like Freud descending into the subconscious mind, looking to uncover the things that lay submerged in darkness. I remember the days of our watery exploration as the beginning of my love affair with folktales. Lured in by the nameless allure, I dive deeper and find myself again.