When I was 9 years old, my family moved to a rather new neighborhood where houses on our block were only about five years old. There was still a lot of house construction in the general area and my brother Gib and I would always like to go nosing around in them when there were no workers.

At the end of the cul-de-sac on our street there was a house that sat vacant for (maybe) a couple months. So of course one day Gib and I decided to go into that houses’ backyard. There was a swimming pool and it had been unkempt since the previous owners had moved out.

The pool’s water looked disgusting. It was terribly mossy and there were un-popped bubbles on the surface. Clearly the sludge was so old and thick the bubbles were unable to allow it’s air to escape.

The pool was many shades of green and one could tell that the deeper areas of the pool had the darkest green color. I had already gone through a green mossy lake experience in my life and seeing the pool water brought it all back. To me, it was like standing at the edge of a cliff and living down. It’s a frightening feeling and always makes my head spin with dizziness.

That same night I had a dream where everything played out as it had when Gib and I went on our house venture. In the dream, Gib and I were on our bicycles and we rode them into the backyard of the same house with the pool. The pool’s water looked just as gross in my dream as it had in person but this time, we wanted to be daredevils and try to jump the pool with our bikes.

We were sure we could do it if we could only get enough speed leading up to the pool’s edge. Gib went first and was successful in his jump. Then it was my turn. I didn’t make it. Before I could reach the other side of the pool, my back wheel had dipped into the water and that was it. I fell backward, along with my bike, into the green mossy water.

The horror of trying to get out of that mossy water all came back to me as the pool’s walls were now slippery with the green moss. Yes, it was only a dream, but the memory still makes me cringe as my dream seemed very real.