I’ve yet to discover a medical term for this compulsion but compulsion I believe it is: the building, digging, creating, forming, gouging (whatever) of gardenpools out of suburban plots. It is possible that when scientists have finally untwisted those twining strands of our D.N.A. that a gene will be discovered that creates this urge…From our gene pool there may be a fishpool gene…and you thought only your life was twisted. I can imagine the scene: “Hey Harry looky here! We got it, just there, look, that odd looking curl just below and not entirely disconnected from the social ridicule seeking node…the fishpond building gene” “Yeah, thanks Gloria, at last huh? D’ya think we can find one that corresponds to the need for fishing gnomes? We could make millions with a cure for that!”

That’s it for me really, I could never understand this poolbuilding thing, as a child at the seaside with a bucket and spade I felt the compulsion and even at beach parties as an adult I can feel a need to  get down, get dirty and dam a stream just for the hell of it…My dad had this compulsion, we had a ‘pond’. A stepped semicircle maybe six feet across, I was allowed to help build this in a special way, sitting some distance away on a wall, I think I helped my dad a lot like that as a child (and probably still do) Somehow he could never quite connect that his tools could have other uses and that burying them felt a good thing to do…anyway, Dad’s ‘pond’. It had plants, fish and eventually bricks and other crap that other kids threw in there, I was never allowed near the ‘pond’ unless supervised. Quite why I never have figured out, if it was dangerous then why build the fucking thing? Life as a kid is full of the weird stunts that adults pull. When I got to be old enough to manage myself, he filled it in! Work that one out… In winter the ‘pond’ would have bits of polystyrene floating in it to keep the surface from completely freezing over, in autumn a net to keep leaves off, in spring algae would begin to form and by summer a full algae bloom could be in place if the old man hadn’t pulled all the crap out or kept up the ‘pond’ water level. This is it for me, that level of obsession, the daily/weekly grind of work to keep up the ‘pond’ the feeding of the fish, the rescue of frogs, there’s just got to be a gene working in overdrive there somewhere. My fear: that I may have this gene in there somewhere myself, instead I’ve torn out fish ponds, built patios, barbecues, planted trees, anything but build a sodding ‘pond’  Recently I had a fishpond dream…(and no I don’t want to talk about this doctor)

My favourite fishpond moment would be one summer, Dave and I rode our motorcycles out into the countryside around Wolverhampton, he was with Bev’ then and they were in ‘Love’ I was with Karen who I was supposed to be in love with I believe that lust and youth would be far more accurate (if what any of us had was love, and the shit that we all put each other through as friends and lovers, then I want no part of Love ever…) We caught a glimpse of lake and turned our bikes onto a track toward it, the weather glorious, hot, sticky and the sun blazing away. We stopped, stripped and dived in, the water cool with warmer patches, we swam, splashed, played the usual water games that young people do. I stopped at one point to catch my breath and the most incredible thing happened: fish started nibbling me! Soon all four of us were standing there feeling soft kisses from little 2/3 inch fish, all over our bodies. The most amazing feeling ever, kisses not like a lover who has only one mouth, one pair of hands to caress, but tens of kisses at the same time in different places… we stood silently together but forever apart. Our reverie soon ended. A rough shout of “OI! What do you think you’re doing? Get out of there, this is a private lake get out!” We did, scrambling into our clothes and racing our engines back into a crueller world. The lake was never ever talked about specifically again and I’ve since found that it belongs to a nearby Convent, though I’ve never been back. Karen and I split a year later, we’d hurt each other enough by then, Dave and Bev’ took another couple of twisted blighted melancholic years before they gained enough momentum to carom off each other and into the dark. I don’t know any of them now…

This gene when discovered I suspect for some of us can never be cured or redirected, it is too deep within the soul, too archetypal to mess with, we would do so at our peril.

©neil benbow