I was three when I fell in the polar bear pool at the zoo.
My parents say it’s a miracle that I didn’t drown.
Always that I didn’t drown. Not that I didn’t get eaten by the polar bear. Maybe they don’t like to consider that possibility.
I don’t remember much of it. I’m not even sure how I managed to fall in, and everyone else’s recollections of the actual air-to-water transition vary.
I remember how bright and blue the water was.
I remember how desperately I wanted the polar bear to be friends with me.
Sometimes in my dreams I am back in that impossibly blue water, and sometimes it feels like home.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.