Pond Man was her creature.

Pond Man was her creature. George Eliot keeps creatures, her characters. They are well trained; they fade and die at the apposite time, in the right season. God too, the God of the Bible at least. ‘Creature’, from ‘creare’, Latin for create. A creature has a creator; a creature does not make himself.

‘There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.’ (George Eliot, Middlemarch)

Dorothy wasn’t sure this applied to Pond Man. His inward being seemed strong enough to withstand her, and yet she wanted him to melt into the place so she could keep him. Plant him out; another willow tree along the back wall; the soil was dry back there. His roots would not rot and from there he could survey all that she had made, all that he had made, for he had dug out the pond, although it was her idea.

She kept thinking of excuses so she could keep him, make more work for him. The leaves need raking and the wall is starting to crumble along the top, can’t you see? Henry could not, but his eyes hadn’t been good lately. Still, he he might have noticed a crumbling wall in his own garden at least, but if Dorothy was sure …. Dorothy was quite sure. She needed a creature, at least for one summer. Character is destiny said Heraclitus. She would keep him; train him along the brick wall where the sun fell in soft lances breaking up the brick work, scattering the light.

(From POND LIFE: Novel Forms of Living — work in progress)