One time, my brothers and I swam in a small pond by the windmill that came and went with the rain. Each monsoon, the pond would swell and buzz with a thousand tadpoles. The water was always cool. Suddenly, my youngest brother screeched in horror as he lifted his hand from the murk, clutching a green lizard-like creature. It was long like a snake and had gill-like ears protruding from the side of its head. Its skin was lime-green and shockingly clean. It squirmed to be free of my brother’s clenched fist. We ran from the water and onto the crusted surface dirt, careful not to excite the creature.
What had we caught? Was it a salamander, a newt, or a Loch Ness Monster pup sent here from across the world by harsh winds, dust storms, and ribboned rains? In my memory, that’s what we asked. In my memory, we carefully extracted the creature from the pond and placed it into a glass pickle jar that we found in the rubble near the windmill until we got home. Once home, we filled the glass pickle jar with sink water so we could study the animal. Inside the jar, the animal magnified into a large beast as we watched its eyes dart back and forth. That night we kept the beast at my house. The next day my oldest cousin came by and picked the beast up to put it into his larger fish tank. I watched him fill the tank with tub water; a fine aquarium dust settled at the bottom. I remember sitting in his room while my cousins all played Nintendo and studying the beast as it danced in the tank, glowing and free. Its legs were dress-like: they flowed beneath its body, swirling around the tank in radiant glimmers. In a few days’ time, the beast was dead. I never knew its name.
— Jake Skeets, “The Memory Field”
