Fountain of Youth, Allison Park, Pittsburgh, PA
There is and there is not, as it has been said, a natural spring nestled in Allison Park, sheltered in a rock grotto that brings to mind sprawling fantasies with djinn and faeries and nymphs, in which magic is real and tangible and magnificent and full of compelling consequences.
The wild-eyed, silver-haired women spoke in a strange dialect and looked to be in their late eighties. You don’t know why they set their sights on you, but you knew they could tell you were strapped for cash by your wrinkled blouse, your paltry plate of eggs and toast, the fact that you’d spent the last few minutes counting quarters and dimes, placing them in neat stacks in front of you.
You felt the old creatures staring at you from their seats at the bar, but more than that, you felt growing dread that you might not be able to pay for your breakfast. You hadn’t thought to count your change before your first cup of coffee, when you were recovering from an awkward sleep in the backseat of your car and still felt barely alive.
The old ladies--arms interlocked in an old-timey but youthful sort of way, like best friends in an old movie--slipped into the other side of your booth as you finished your last bite of egg. They nodded toward the camera lounging on the other side of your plate before asking for your life story. Their eyes were full of concern, yet somehow vacant at the same time.
You told them you were a freelance photographer traveling to North Carolina to see family, thinking, if you played the part well, these women might take pity, maybe even pay your bill.
They did not offer to pay your bill. Instead, they were quite insistent that, as a photographer, you must visit Pittsburgh’s Fountain of Youth.
The woman seated by the window stared at your camera as she told you about the spring and about Good ol’ Donny, bless him, who used to work as a mechanic at the old auto shop a mile down the road, by the ice cream place and across the street from the gas station that used to be a BP and … well, it’s still a gas station, so what’s it matter?
The woman in the aisle seat leaned her head into the crook of the other woman’s neck and shoulder. The gesture seemed both fond and lightly chastising, as she interjected to say that’s not the point, Ruthie. Then her eyes settled on you and your gorgeous hair, dear. Seems it could use a good wash.
Ruthie smiled, resting her own head atop her companion’s. She knows, she knows. And anyway, Donny’s the one who first called it that--the Fountain of Youth. Put a sign above it, etching the words onto a stone disk. He’d said a “lady of the fountain,” his words, had told him we could have eternal youth whose grandeur would seem insignificant and small compared with all we could become.
Suzie’s mom was the first to drink. Three years later, Suzie swore that her mom hadn’t aged a day. That’s when Donny made the sign. Soon, all of them, the locals, went to drink.
Els leaned forward like it was all some grand secret, how it operated nearly twenty years before the WPA ripped the pump handle from the hillside. Declared it contaminated by fecal waste. Funny thing, that, she added. Water was pure as kittens just two years prior.
Els’ eyes grew solemn. Turns out, you see, everyone who took a sip came back wrong. Got a whole mental hospital full of never-aging folks who seemed emptied of themselves long before they’d been committed. What’s that old saying, “Youth is wasted on the young”? Well, seems to me, this here’s youth wasted on the old.
Ruthie sighed. Anyway, they took Donny’s sign down, but we put it right back up, didn’t we? She grinned proudly, elbowing her companion. Can’t just get rid of history like that. Didn’t replace the pump handle though. Good riddance, that. The point, dear, is that that spot still photographs mighty well. Sell those pictures for a pretty penny, you could. Fund your entire trip even.
So, camera in tow, you found this place, following the overgrown trail with its crumpled corpses of withered leaves crunching under your boots like brittle bones. Thinking the autumn had dressed the wood in your favorite colors--a blur of deep reds and burnt yellows--you drank in the early evening air with soft satisfaction as you continued on, hoping for decent photos.
Because you are broke, laden with worldly obligation to fund the rest of your trip to Brevard so that you can say goodbye to your rotting father until he dies and, soon enough, bury him in the Earth, where his empty flesh will be eaten by microscopic beings, insignificant cells unworthy of what his body once held.
You found this place just as they described. The sight of it immediately consumed you and brought your camera to life. The images felt so expansive, did they not? As if this place could not be contained by the bounds of aspect ratios, as if the twilight washing over it could not be captured by any length of exposure.
Inside the grotto, you aimed your lens at the inscribed disk: “Fountain of Youth.”
The whir of rushing water shakes the stones here. It echoes under babbling laughter and whispers.
You sat cross-legged, bathed in slippery moonlight, listening to the beckoning water.
Empty, the old ladies had said, like there’s no one there. But they’re not gone. You were so absorbed in the sound of the waters, the sound of the old women echoing up about you from the fountain’s depths, that you didn’t even notice her at first. But you finally did see her. Your surprise fell mute at the sight of her glistening skin, her ebony mane, her glowing, amber eyes.
Another voice welled up within you, one not of this place, one that thought she understood, but she did not: the voice of your Sitoo warning you, do not to let the devils whisper into your heart, habibi. You must mind the lonely places.
This is one such lonely place. Pay it no mind.
The glistening, amber-eyed woman crouched, fingers brushing your chin. She hummed in a way that warmed your blood, like the feeling that comes minutes after you’ve jumped into icy waters, that sense of gradual equilibrium, when the cold gives way as your nerves settle into the water.
The question, she said, is always why. The answer is never the same--unrequited love, deathly illness, the empty future, youthful vanity. But then, the answer is also always the same--to be more, to be greater, to be untethered, yet forever bound to others, collected.
You could not have understood, but you nodded anyway. You could feel her raising your flesh into a braille you could not read but felt as if it were screaming at you to run.
You’ve run for so many years, from Brevard and your father, from town to town after you’d felt you’d embarrassed yourself one too many times in front of one too many people with your endless moping about and all those sudden outbursts. You’ll probably never have a regular staff job again. Who would hire you after that?
Wouldn’t it be nice to just stop and catch up to yourself?
You lean toward her as if she holds the answer.
And you see? Here and there you are. Here and there you were. Here and there you will be: with us, as you always should have been.
She stands. Gently pulls you up. So often, consciousness is a cruelty. But it doesn’t have to be. You can be a part of something greater. Aren’t you lonely?
She offers you a humble, wooden bowl. You would drink from it if she asked. Yes, you say, your voice distant and deep within you.
She smiles. Lifts the bowl toward your lips. Better it be beautiful and empty than bitter, old, and sagging.
What’s that?
Your body. It’s already rotting. Like the leaves at your feet. It doesn’t have to. It can stay young and beautiful, and you can be free from all of it. Drink.
And why wouldn’t you? She speaks of the loneliness of self-consciousness. To know that you are, but to know also that the world cares so little for you, is but cold comfort compared to the radiant warmth of collective embrace.
As you drink, you understand that Brevard contains only your father’s dried and empty husk. Soon, that dying stranger will find cold comfort in the hollow embrace of the undying shell that your body becomes. Leave it now.
Your brailled flesh settles as your panicked nerves fade into the wake of her voice.
