The great central lily pad of the southern waters, a fixture of pond life for as many seasons as most living waterfowl can remember, has, at last, gone under.
Word of the sinking reached the gazette late on Friday, though sources close to the southern waters report that the pad had been exhibiting signs of fatigue for several weeks. It had, in its final period, developed a pronounced wobble and had also grown notably less responsive to the weight of visiting frogs, several of whom had been observed preferring, for reasons none of them would state on the record, the lesser pads immediately around it.
A heron, who spent part of the last warm afternoon perched upon the central pad, offered — through a third party — that the final hour was, in its words, “dignified, and then swift.” The heron declined to elaborate, as is the heron’s usual practice. A frog who was present at the last moment has described it as “quiet, and also slightly inconvenient.” This paper considers both accounts to be compatible.
The pad is survived by eleven cousins in the immediate cluster and by a further scattering of pads in the outer reaches of the southern waters, none of whom can quite fill the role it played in the civic life of the pond. The central position, long occupied, is currently unfilled; the Clerk of the Reed-Bed Subcommittee, consulted on the matter, has indicated that no replacement can be rushed, as “a lily pad is not a thing one orders.” The Clerk added, by way of reassurance, that a lily pad is, however, a thing one may, in time, hope for.
Older readers will recall that the sunken pad was already at its present station when the current generation of geese first arrived in the pond, and that it had been the subject of several commemorative honks over the seasons — most notably on the occasion of its tenth consecutive summer of hosting the midsummer gathering, a function for which no successor pad has yet been nominated. It played a role, too, in the Great Heel Shortage of the late frost, serving — without permission, but with the Subcommittee’s tacit approval — as the site of the emergency heel-distribution that kept several households through the worst of it.
Among the tributes received by this paper in the hours following the announcement:
From the Warden of the Sluice: “It was the steadier of the two central pads. I do not often use the word reliable of a lily pad, but in this case I shall, and shall not apologise for it.”
From the Clerk of the Reed-Bed Subcommittee: “The Subcommittee wishes to record its regret. The pad served without complaint for a period the Subcommittee is presently unable to establish, on account of the relevant records being older than any living Clerk. We are persuaded that the period was considerable.”
From an unnamed frog: “It was, in every sense, under me. I feel this loss, privately and publicly, as a matter of my own standing.”
A small memorial gathering is contemplated at dusk on Saturday. Readers wishing to pay their respects in advance are advised to approach the spot quietly and to bring no flowers. Letters of condolence may be honked in the general direction of the southern waters during the evening hours, as is customary. A brief silence will be observed at the close of the gathering, excepting the usual unauthorised honks of a particular coot who has, throughout this paper’s lifetime, refused to observe any silence at all and who has, in connection with this occasion, declined to be remonstrated with in advance.
The question of what shall now occupy the central position of the southern waters remains open. It is this paper’s considered opinion that the question ought to remain open for some time. There is a particular kind of emptiness, readers will know, that does not at once require to be filled.
As ever, the pond remains.