Incident with the Hose

The Incident with the Hose
Something that may have happened

          Playing with the hose was a big deal in the hot summers of my childhood. If you held your finger over the end of the hose, the water would spray in kaleidoscope shapes, twinkling and sprinkling through the hot air. The most special thing to do with the hose was to press it to the ground and watch the water burrow into the dirt. A nice round hole several inches deep would gradually come to exist, and we would pull the hose out and look into the miniature pond with wonder.
          One day I had the hose by myself. No sisters to torment and boss me. My mother visible but not near. I turned the hose downward. It began its wonderful digging, tunneling, pushing. Unrestrained, I didn’t pull the hose out at the usual depth but let it race deeper and deeper. Until it finally occurred to me that it wasn’t going to stop. I didn’t know where it was going. Play transmuted into panic.
          Shaken, I pulled the hose out and set it aside. I reflected on the awful devastation that might have come to pass. It occurred to me that my hose might have ended up in China.
          I didn’t tell my mother. I didn’t tell anyone until many years later when I had no idea whether it really happened.