The Empty Pond

And the people in it.

This was the name of a book I sketched out when I was eleven or twelve: “The Empty Pond, and the People In It.” It wasn’t bad. But that was another time. Speculative fiction by young authors was all the rage. I went out with a print run of one, I think, that was read with rapt attention by some number of adults. They all had nice things to say. Kids? Kids either got it or didn’t. One of the kids who got it became the CEO of a huge multinational corporation. “Great thoughts!” he said. One of the kids who didn’t get it, well, she also became a CEO. Her company was even bigger. “No real momentum!” she said. So I’m not sure what lessons you can draw except to say that you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people unless you know how to give them a good time.

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STREET SCENE

The first day out, you see a body on the street. It’s not moving. It has little teeth and a torn white shirt. Your name is stuck in your mouth as you think about calling the police. “I am no one,” you plan to say, “a bystander. I don’t want trouble.” But they will come for you because they always come for the one who calls the body in, and they will ask questions, just a few, but enough to crack you open, and you will tell them the entire story. “Once upon a time,” you will say, “there was a woman who stood in a doorway and said things she did not mean, and the man she said them to felt the back of his neck grow hotter and hotter.” You will just be telling them why you left the house after so long, but they will hear something else. They will hear a confession or an evasion. The cop in front, the tall one who looks like that guy from that movie that she liked when you first met, he will clap his hands in your face sharply. “Hey,” he will say, “story time is over.” They will let you go eventually, when they cannot establish a relationship between you and the body on the street. You will almost fall down with relief. You will go up the block feeling like a marionette with its strings cut. On the next street, you will see another body, also not moving, also with little teeth. This time the shirt is black. You feel the pinch of the dilemma all over again, at a thousand times the force. Who runs into two bodies in one day? You can’t think straight. You won’t think straight. You focus on a memory of the woman in the doorway and kneel down and then lie down next to the body. Seen from overhead, the two of you look almost like bedmates. But no one will ever see you from overhead. [©2026 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas]