"It was warm and sunny, and the lake was clear like a mirror. but no one was swimming because they said a monster had come to the lake. It was swimming at the bottom, waiting"... "So everyone is scared to get in the water, and suddenly you kick off your shoes, Amir agha, and take off your shirt. There's no monster, you say. "I'll show you all" And before anyone can stop you, you dive into the water, start swimming away. I follow you in and we're both swimming... Get out! Get out! but we just swim in the cold water. We make it way out to the middle of the lake and we stop swimming. We turn toward the shore and wave to the people. They look small like ants, but we can hear them clapping. They see now there is no monster, just water. They change the name of the lake after that, and call it the "Lake of Amir and Hassan", Sultans of Kabul and we get to charge people money for swimming in it"
Symbolism
Clear Lake : there are no signs of trouble, the lake isolates Hassan and Amir so it is only them.
The monster : something unknown, hidden
The price to swim in the lake : everything has a price what is the price?
There is no monster, he'd said, just water. Except he'd been wrong about that. There was a monster in the lake. It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom. I was that monster.
-- Amir
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