Puddle: A Tale for the Curious

by Elena "Birch" Bozzi

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said, “but what would it look like? Really. How would you know a solution is one planted in love? How would one know if it was something real, or wrapped up in enough rhetoric to make it sound like it comes from love, but it really doesn’t?”

  We paused our journey as we neared a fork in the path.

  Puddle said, “That takes much contemplation.”

  “Like when we say we’re okay, but are really not at all, and it comes out through different ways. And you don’t realize you’re causing trouble for others because you’re so wrapped up in how fake you feel and how much metaphorical cushion you put up around yourself that you can’t see what’s real and what’s illusion. You just tell yourself you’re ok, and you’re not. And you’re afraid of changing anything because maybe it will hurt. Especially because you’ve screwed up before and are so worried about screwing up again that you can’t do anything.”

  “We are not alive to be perfect,” Puddle said, and thought a moment more. “Screwing up is ok. Sometimes the best solutions come from mistakes. Decisions that come from love are not always the easiest, or least painful.”

  “You would think that love made things easier.”

  “It does, but sometimes you have to heal from some old pain that might shroud your decisions. It helps to examine your thoughts, and find where that pain comes from. It might have deep roots. It might mean things are not going the way you want them to go.”

  “Ptf, plans. What is more futile: planning or not planning?” I asked rhetorically.

  “Both. Neither.”

  “The pain I feel most is loneliness. Sometimes when I’m most miserable, I go outside and look at beautiful things, like my plants growing, or a breeze through the trees. In winter, the angles of branches make intricate shapes. Or I’ll write myself a letter telling me all the things I want to hear. I fill my senses with pleasant things so the painful things don’t have space to sneak in. It helps me think through that stuff, and see reality as happiness. If I don’t take that time, my energy dries up like a sponge in the sun.”

  “Your decisions create your reality.” Puddle said.

  I smiled at him and said, “Through your journeys, you’ve been separated from people you love, and have known hunger, and still are strong. I respect that, and it puts a lot into perspective. I am impressed at the hope you still carry.”

  “Strength is like the ebb and flow of tides. I am always searching. Sometimes I do not know for what,” Puddle said as he looked out through the branches. “Sometimes it is my home planet, but I wandered even before I left. Sometimes my search is for an unknown thing adept at hiding itself from my mind.

  “You mentioned filling yourself with beauty. You speak to my heart. A lot of my hope comes from acknowledging the beautiful things I have seen on my journeys. I have picked up good advice along the way. A wise woman said once, in everything, there is something. I look for the something beautiful in everything.”

  “I get reprimanded for tiptoeing through the tulips,” I said. “I look silly, like my head is in the clouds and I have no worries. But, really, being playful is an intentional choice that keeps me full of energy while dealing with the stressful things. I am not taken seriously by many people who see me do silly, playful things. Life is too short to forget how to play. If I didn’t take time to play, smell flowers, and walk through even this small forest, the pressure of life would be too much. It fills me with love, and that love gives me strength.”

  “I agree with you,” agreed Puddle. “Do we have to stop playing in order to be taken seriously? That is depressing.”

  “Let’s play anyway, and hope for the best. Those that understand will still take us seriously.”

  “Let us be silly,” declared Puddle. “And on that note, let us continue our journey. Where, now, does our adventure lead us?”

  “Onwards,” I stepped.

  *~*

  Wreets and Portals

  The ones called Wreets, named by those who feared the creatures, sifted through the grass like moonlight through ice. They had no names of their own, and thought of each other as one, though could distinguish one from the other by their subtle ways of sniffing. The ones who named them knew not their Purpose, and were summoned together to dissolve their existence from their land. The Wreets were vaguely aware of the animosity fermenting toward their species, but held to their Purpose, which gave them fulfillment and joy. They had no voice, but they spoke. Their words were too strong to be restrained by syllables, and too old to care. A single letter would encompass continents, and a paragraph would stretch to two ends of a solar system. Listen to them. Don’t listen with your ears, hear with your heart.

  A child sits alone, lost, weakened. It looks about with bobbing head and unfocused eyes. Its instincts are strong and it will not call to its guardians unless it hears them first. It does not hear well, as most of its body is dirt, and its ears have been blocked for generations. It cannot hear their frantic whispers, like wind through tall grass. Indeed, that is what they are. They are creatures of grass, and they take their position with the absolute seriousness of everlasting Purpose, while, paradoxically, live light as dandelion fluff and just as fully. The child cannot hear the frantic whispers with its ears. It experiences a sense that has evolved with the Wreet species. Many other creatures that also possesses this sense do so unconsciously, but the Wreets know. They use this sense as a means for survival.

  Their sense lies deep within the elements. They feel each chemical in its purest form, even when the particles join as complex molecules. From the arrangement of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen atoms on their own, to their bonds and beyond, Wreets are cognizant of constant actions and reactions. They know when magnesium is present in a cell, or when iron stirs the mix. Their sense is so acute that the only way for them to keep from being overwhelmed from processing the atomic stimuli in their habitat is for their entire being to be made of soil and grasses.

  Chemical changes in their space call to their comprehension. They can sense when a situation prescribes passion, or presence, or disappearance. Now demands action. A child is lost.

  The young one strains to stand on its two twiggish legs, and wobbles a few steps before it collapses against its own fear. It retreats in upon itself to better hide from what could cause it pain. It hasn’t been alive long enough to truly know its capabilities, and closes itself off to potential unfriendly searchers. It looks like an unoffending clump of grass.

  The guardians send out a shield of protection: an invisible dome over their searching perimeters. It stems from their heart, and from their intention of comforting the child. A feeling of warmth, but not in temperature, blankets the area. A sound deep within the child rumbles to the surface like a nearly inaudible rockslide, or thunderstorm too high up to hear. It half closes its eyes, and waits in purring peace. The guardians alter their course, because, now, they know their destination exactly.

  *~*

  We walked through flooded trails. The spring rain made many portals, and we discussed what sorts of worlds could exist on the other side.

  “The pools are mirrors of the other side,” reiterated Puddle from our previous conversation. “There is a lot of guesswork going on. If the puddle changes, does the destination change as well?”

  “Perhaps you could go through one way, and return immediately through the same pool.”

  Puddle looked at me with a mixture of wonder and dismay, “I may have been able to get home from that very first tumble if I thought like you. On another thought, that regret is complicated. If I had gone directly back home, I never would have met you. I never would have had the many adventures that I have enjoyed, though grudgingly at first.”

  I smiled and was glad that he was glad he met me, and said, “I’m glad to have met you too, and am quite a bundle of glad all over right now.”

  We decided that our quest was to be no quest in particular. Our goals were to enjoy each other’s company and the day, a
nd see where that took us. We wanted to explore and hypothesize. Thus, we observed a plethora of puddles.

  “This world would have things appear far, but be very close,” I mused. “It’s like the warning on the mirrors on cars. See the trees reflecting way away. They look so distant, but my mind tells me I could bend down and touch their reflection. See. Bend closer, and the reflection shifts. We would have difficulty moving in this other world because we would run into everything. If we went to this world and climbed one of the trees, I think the leaves would catch you if you were to fall.”

  “Distance is deceiving,” said Puddle.

  “Brains are weird,” I replied. “I was watching a documentary about senses, and there was a person who had surgery to bring back his eyesight that he didn’t have for many years. He had to learn depth of field again. Like, he had to go down stairs and everything carefully because his brain wasn’t used to processing distance with his eyes.”

  “Gaining a new sense would change your whole perception,” Puddle empathized. “I have wondered what senses could be available, but have not evolved in any species I have come across, at least that I realized. I did not consider how those senses might mess with the senses we already know. We would perceive everything differently.”

  “I also met a person who lost his eyesight, but got around by using his hearing differently,” I added. “He clicked with his tongue, like sonar. He could even mountain bike. Talk about being adaptable.”

  “That adaptability goes both ways. Amazing. Change is the only thing we can rely on, so adapting is pretty useful.”

  I stood by a puddle full of leaves, and said, “Check this out.”

  “This world would have ooze dripping from every surface. See the algae growing as if off the clouds. This world would smell faintly, but not unpleasantly, of turtles.”

  “I bet that would be a great world for turtles. They eat all sorts of oozy algae things. Turtles would love the world through this other puddle, too. Look at all the clovers. I knew a turtle, once, who would sunbathe all day in a field of purple clover.”

  “I would get along with that turtle.”

  “One time I saved a turtle from walking into the road. It was on top of a hill, crossing over to the danger zone. It was lumbering slowly away from a very nice, watery field of cattails. Hey, you can eat cattails.”

  “You are a hero,” winked Puddle, joyously. “Do you think it had a turtle disagreement in the cattail field? Or, it was on its own quest?”

  “Maybe it was looking for greener fields of muck.”

  “It could have been a dare.”

  “Or a turtle coming-of-age event. Where each turtle has to cross the road to become an adult.”

  “It was really an ancient, time-honored ceremony.”

  “Yeah, that got more dangerous with faster cars. Stinky cars.”

  “Lots of stinky.”

  “Many people used to go by calendars that were naturally sculpted on the back of turtles,” I tried to remember the story correctly. “They have thirteen large bumps on their shells, which were the months. The twenty-eight small bumps around the edges were the days. This mathed perfectly for Earth’s trip around the sun, except for one day extra every year. That extra day is called the day out of time. People still throw big parties for it.”

  “All time is turtle time,” Puddle chuckled. “We have turtles on my planet as well, and we look to them for guidance, though they say very little. They are never in a hurry, and always get to their destination. They like both sun and rain, and live carefully carefree.”

  “I shall look to turtles for guidance,” I established, and returned to puddles. “So, what about the roadside portals? They’re shiny with pollution. Would they lead to worlds covered in oil?”

  “I have seen those puddles here, and would hope the adjoining world would be covered in rainbows, like the colorful shine that floats on top.”

  “Let us say they are worlds of rainbows until we test it for sure,” I decided. “It’s nicer to think of rainbows than sticky worlds of suffocation. The solution to that pollution would take many changes. We set ourselves up with a long history of short-sighted and indulgent choices.”

  “Ah,” reflected Puddle, “it would either take a lot of effort from a single source or a little effort from many. One big log, or many small twigs can boil the same pot of water.”

  Puddle bent down over a puddle, using one of the hazel wands we gathered to poke some leaves. I wondered if it had any effect on the connected world.

  “Water is so precious on my planet,” he said. “We were experiencing continuous drought for several years. People were getting sick from dirty water. The rocks that make up our reservoirs have salts and minerals that seep into the water. They are fine, until they become too concentrated, then they negate the hydrating effects of water. Shortly before the issue went way too far, we gathered together to find solutions. Everyone worked to conserve our life-giving resource. It took our collected efforts.”

  “You know the kinds of things that happen here?” I queried with passion. My heartbeat increased, and the words came out like a floodgate broke. “Water has been turned into a business and control mechanism. There are places that did band together, and their solutions were working. Then, Somebody came in and made their solutions illegal because the Somebody was losing money from selling water when the people took matters into their own hands.

  “I do not want to live in a world where people try to destroy each other like that. I don’t want to live in a world where bees are illegal, and people can’t grow food in their yards because it’s not pretty enough. Useful, empowering things are beautiful! So much of the time I’m drowning in a plastic life where convenience is more important than fulfillment, and boredom and compliance are valued above passion and understanding. I just want to be me, and the me I want to be is so frowned upon by everything that is shoved in my face on every billboard, in every magazine, and on every insidious advertisement that tries to convince me I’m not who I should be.

  “My heart breaks all day long. The list of things I don’t do right does laps around the list of things I do. It makes me a useless lump of a person, or at least makes me think that. It’s not even my list! It comes from expectations piled on expectations that somebody probably made up on the fly in order to feel superior, and never reexamined enough to make sure those expectations were worthwhile, and then passed them around to other people like a head cold in a stuffy room, saying this is how it is and always has been, therefore it is good, as if it were true.

  “Maybe it would make sense to keep doing things the ways we always have done things. If that were the case, than we would have done things that way all along. But we haven’t. The way we’ve always done things is always changing, though so much of me feels too much of the big stuff is not changing in the name of compassion and understanding. Not really. Not fast enough. It’s hurting a lot of the planet.

  “I want to appreciate every moment of life. I’m sick of upturned noses and greasy roadside puddles. I’m sick of being crushed by someone else’s fears. I’m sick of knowing that my plant friends and the land they live upon are getting murdered by piles of garbage and bubbling waste that are byproducts of living a supposedly modern and civilized life. Monsters! I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. I. Need. To. Leave.”

  Tears leaked from my eyes. They burned with regret, especially because I had no idea what to do.

  “Ehhh,” I calmed my breath, “Now. Come on. I’m going either way.”

  “Here,” Puddle motioned to a clear pool reflecting trees and ferns. The contours in the water looked like voluptuous hills of forest flowers.

  “I have said intention is part of this process,” said Puddle, to further explain waterjumping. “Think once more on your thoughts. I left my planet flustered. Only later did I realize what my decision meant. You may never return.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have reached that point. I need change.”
/>
  Puddle watched me, and said, “There is a chasm of difference between needing change, and leaving your world. You could travel in this world. You could stay and work on justice issues, like the freedom of water.”

  “I know, but this is the opportunity presenting itself. I’m taking my ability to see you enter this world as one of those universe signs. I need to travel away from this world. I am ready.”

  “Your family will worry if you do not tell them where you are going.”

  “They’ll try to keep me here.”

  “They love you.”

  “What if I go talk with them, and decide to never leave? What if I start to fear the unknown of where our journey could take us, and decide to stay within the safety of everything I’ve known before? The momentum of the magic could be lost. I need to go. I’ll, well, I’ll send a text. That’s not the greatest, but I don’t want to get talked out of my decision.”

  “You have thought about the consequences,” Puddle replied. “I have wanted a traveling companion. Your senses are open to the world. You hear the plants. I have a feeling we will be able to travel well together.”

  “Me too.”

  “Ok, so your intention must be coupled with belief. Hold true that this way of traveling is legitimate and will happen. It may not work at first, but do not be discouraged.”

  “I saw you climb from a puddle. I believe well enough, especially after talking with you.”

  Puddle held up his stone that was the cousin of the one hanging at my throat, “The door remains barred without a proper password or key. This stone is of the stars, and wishes to travel there. Yet, it always returns to the planets, as the cycle of the universe repeats itself. It has spoken in its silent way. Your stone remembers, and will be the bridge through space.”

  I touched my necklace, “I had no idea of its true power.”

  “Take my hand, and concentrate. Let us go.”

  I felt like I was looking over the edge of a precipice and sensed how all the potential energy of my life might turn kinetic. I would either fly or fall, but in the end I would land somewhere.