The Clockwork Toymaker and Other Fables

The Lake

An old man sits with his son. The boy has come to his father for advice. He is going through a difficult time; he has lost his job and new work has not been forthcoming, and now his lover is threatening to leave him. She says he's become distant, that he's negative and bleak. He feels useless and powerless and certain that the world has turned against him.

The old man has been listening attentively for quite some time, nodding often to his son's tangled explanations and his assertions that nobody understands. He has said very little, allowing his son all the space he needs to communicate.

When the boy has finished talking, the old man remains silent, taking a few moments to consider his response. Finally, he speaks.

"Son," he says, "Let me tell you a story."

And he begins:

There was once a boy who lived with his father. They lived together in a small apartment in a grey and smoky city, a gridded expanse of soaring, concrete towers.

The boy's mother was dead. She had died recently and tragically and neither the boy nor his father was coping. The father and son had never been emotionally communicative and they were finding it nearly impossible to talk about their feelings. In the past it had been hard, but the mother's death had created a rift that stifled their words like a vacuum.

The boy's discomfort affected him at school. He had become reclusive and shy and the other children teased him unrelentingly. The boy was lonely. More than anything he wanted to have friends. He wanted to be accepted by his peer group. This, he was sure, would make him happy.

The boy's father was a workaholic and since his wife's death he had started working that much harder. Deep down he knew that this was a coping strategy, but he felt sure that it was effective. The work took his mind off things. But he could see that it wasn't helping his son. The boy was sad and the man realized he had to do something about it. He arranged to take his son on holiday, on an exciting outdoor adventure.

The father had in mind a week of fishing, hunting and swimming, and took the boy to the country, a thousand miles from the city, away from the grey and smoky air, to a village beside a forest and a deep, expansive lake.

The boy had never seen the country before. For the first time in his life he was breathing pure air and listening to the sounds of peace and tranquillity.

The unfamiliar naturalness frightened him. His father cajoled him into hunting and fishing, but the boy didn't take any pleasure from outdoor activities. He found that he wasn't very good at them. Yet his father seemed certain that "doing was best" and the boy felt pressurized into having fun.

But they still weren't talking. In fact, their relationship was as tense as it had ever been.

And now, without even the distractions of noise and bustle, the boy began to feel lonelier than ever.

And so, he ran away.

One day, while his father was out collecting bait for yet another a fishing trip, the boy ran off into the wilderness. He ran and ran without any thought to his destination. He just ran to be away from his father. From the incongruity and the artifice of their bonding. He ran on and on through the forests and fields never once stopping, just wishing to be away. At times he closed his eyes, so that he couldn't see the nature. He didn't want it – all this nature – he just wanted to be away. And so he ran.

Until he reached the lake.

For a moment he stood, staring at the water. It was deep and dark and green. And it seemed to go on forever.

A fairytale lake. It was frightening.

And yet, enticing.

The boy didn't think. He simply jumped. He found that he had jumped. Jumped into the lake, into the darkness and the deep. And then he began to sink, slowly, toward the bottom.