by D. J. Holmes
* * *
“Look, Running Deer, all the way down this hall there are folded waves, just like the ones we put our heads through way above this dwelling. Only, listen…these waves are making sounds. It’s like they are calling to us.”
“Do you think that we should put our heads through these waves, Gray Wolf?”
“It looks the same, so it shouldn’t hurt. Let me try it first, Running Deer.”
Putting his head through the refracted, folded waves, Gray Wolf, finds himself looking under the water at several large fish.
“Running Deer look through this one. It has the biggest fish I have ever seen. It’s all water though, so take a huge breath before you put your head through it.”
Running Deer takes a breath, and sticks his head through the waves.
“Wow,” he thinks to himself as he looks at the many varieties of colorful fish under the water. One huge fish approaches him, curious as to what Running Deer is. Looking eye to eye, checking each other out, the fish touches her lips to his. Quickly pulling his head out he says, “That thing kissed me, with its cold, slimy lips!”
“It did? Let me look.” Gray Wolf puts his head through the portal again. By that time, another fish has taken its place and aggressively comes after Gray Wolf. This fish seems to know what the portal is and turns around to stick his huge tail through the entrance into the Hall of Corridors. Scooping Gray Wolf up, he flips him to the upper end of his tail. Gray Wolf hangs on and rides it like he would a horse. “Look at me, Running Deer. I’m riding this huge fish’s tail! And we’re not even in the water. We’re out in this hall.”
“Be careful, Gray Wolf.”
“I can handle it, my Brother. It’s just like riding a horse when it decides to jump up and down in the air. I can do it. After all, I am the second son of, Blue Cloud. He could ride anything! I will just remember his moves.”
“You’re doing a good job, Gray Wolf, but it’s so huge. I’d be careful.”
Wanting to be as heroic as his father, Gray Wolf hits the side of the fish. “Is that all that you can give me? I can take more than that! Come on show me what you’ve got!”
Moving faster and more violently from side to side, with an occasional up and down movement, Gray Wolf, holds on for dear life finally yelling, “My Brother, help me!”
As Running Deer rushes to help his brother, the movement of the tail catches him, and throws him through a portal on the opposite side of the hall. With two more strong movements from the fish tail, Gray Wolf finds himself on the floor of the Hall of Corridors. As the tail continues to whip back and forth, Gray Wolf is caught in the motion and pushed into a different portal on the same side of the hall, but further down.
Just as if the fish knew that he had won the challenge, he finally swims back into the great water from which it came, retracting its tail from the Hall of Corridors.
Silence fills the Hall of Corridors. The only thing left behind to show that anything has happened, is a large puddle of water on the floor, and two portals with their refraction moving in an opposite direction.
