Puddle: A Tale for the Curious

by Elena "Birch" Bozzi

  I wasn’t sure about every mountain top, but at least the peak we stood upon knew how to display an evening. That peak also knew the true meaning of silence, which caused my whisper. I was reluctant to unmute the world.

  A tiny bird thundered past in search of berries.

  Luck, nature spirits, or both were on our side that evening. A pile of boulders called our attention. A tall, thin entrance opened to a short, squat talus cave. We used the lighter from my tick kit to explore, even though there wasn’t much. At the same time, the little room was absolutely perfect. We built a modest fire with the dry wood scattered on the floor. We had warmth and light, as the stars stretched and yawned awake.

  The trees had provided us with food they called cibum. It tasted more boring than cardboard, but filled us up. We tried putting rowanberry jam on it, but that somehow made it worse. Whatever. We were warm, fed, and on an adventure through the mountains.

  The stars sang us sweet lullabies, and we went outside of our transient home to hear better. Puddle and I sat close to ward off the chill of the darkness. His touch was calm and comforting, undemanding, as we watched the symphony of stars.

  *~*

  I woke first and stretched in the blue mist before sunrise. Morning’s unique scent wandered with me while I looked at the mossy boulders and slopes that fell off the peak, which could, questionably, be considered cliffs.

  The wolf sat on a rock as I turned a bend.

  It was too late. They had closed in. I fainted and slipped off the slope cliff to my certain doom, or would have had my second thoughts not been so persistent. The wolf was not searching for a meal.

  Its golden eyes peered deep into my soul.

  If the wolf wanted to search my soul, so be it. I knew I was worthy. I accepted myself, and accepted I would probably get frustrated at myself and other creatures a few more times before I left my human body. That was ok. I lived with love in my heart. No matter how many scars had healed, were healing, or opened back up, I would always endeavor to live with love in my heart. I would do so no matter how many times I screwed up trying to become the person I wanted to be, or do a thing that went haywire and hurt more than it helped, or when I screamed or cried or hid because no one listened. It saw the time I kicked a flower because I was in a bad mood, then got a thorn in my toe. It saw the changing moment in my life when I first read the quote, I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better, which taught me I deserved patience for myself. Life was about learning how to do more life. It saw the times I felt that some mistakes were too much fun to try only once.

  It saw the times I wanted to leave my human body earlier than was its natural course. It saw the times I felt disconnected from everything, judged by everyone, and either in trouble for what I thought was no reason or bored beyond my boundaries. It saw when I thought to myself, this was life, and wanted no part of it. It saw me as I scraped away layers of skin off my wrists, as I hoped for a sign that life wasn’t unbearably crushing and cruel. It saw when I laid in my garden, snow melting on my face, hopeless, because all my friends were asleep for the winter. It saw the cat nudge my face. The cat was either trying to make me feel better, or it was hungry, but it was enough of a sign to get me through to spring.

  The wolf searched my soul. Or, it just looked at me and I searched my own soul. It lolled its tongue out and walked off.

  I wandered back to Puddle waking up.

  “I dreamed I was a wolf,” he said. “And good morning.”

  “Good morning. Yeah?”

  “The world was full of beauty.”

  “How beautiful,” I smiled. “Let’s be wolves while we walk today.”

  “Yeah.”

  Puddle and I periodically howled at each other as we walked. Waterfalls abounded, from the kind that barely gurgled to the kind that drowned out the wind, had there been any wind. The deer highway often ran parallel to a modest brook, or one of her branches. I loved how the tiny streams broke apart and met back up, causing wrinkles in the face of the mountain.

  With their nimble hops, deer had no need for bridges over the river, but we were grateful. Someone had recently constructed a bridge of boughs across a part of the water that would have given us soggy shoes. The trees were looking out for us.

  I observed the little rivers dancing around gravity and rocks. Rocks had responsibilities. They shaped the land with water and wind, and held ancient history. I rested my hand on a chunk of granite that told of its journey from the innards of the world, and how its crystals formed during its underground plutonian lifestyle. Large lichens on its face spoke of its time above ground. Lichens grew so slowly, and taught interdependence because they were often a mix of fungus and algae. One needed help making food, and the other needed help living on land. They worked together to survive in their difficult situations, such as the tops of rocks.

  The song of the bumblebee hovered among a patch of blue star asters as we passed a slump of mountain slate, whose edges had worn away to gaudy up the surrounding soil with sparkles. Squirrels and birds busied about with the bidding of the forest, as they endlessly transported nuts, seeds, and berries. What delegation of tasks.

  The voluptuous mountain forests, draped in decadent cloud-shadow accessories, brandished their beauty while we walked through hours. When my spirit felt drained, one solution I found particularly effective was to search out beautiful sights. However, when my body was too drained, my eyes forgot to see the beauty that filled my soul with energy.

  “Break!” I called.

  “Awooo! What? I cannot hear you over the complaints of my feet,” Puddle called back.

  Balsam Fir roots built perfectly uneven steps on the incline. We watched the trees’ sappy spitting contest while we paused on the steps. The residue reflected rainbows on the ground.

  My eyes followed a hefty centipede rustling over dead leaves. It legs looked like slow photons traveling in a line. Puddle made rowanberry sandwiches. When we continued, the world was beautiful again.

  As was the cycle of life. Go, rest, go. Repeat.

  Experience had made us ready for the quick flip of day to night in the mountains. We began our search for a suitable sleeping spot before the sky garden bloomed.

  The mountain revealed a secret.

  We named it Rock House. My inner amateur geologist was stumped with my inability to acutely grasp the time it took for nature to build a structure like Rock House. It looked as if a tube of a river swiveled near the top of the cliff, because of the cave’s undulating walls. The river was underground enough to create a roof, and close enough to the edge to add windows that lit the cave. The smooth walls were painted in sedimentary layers. We peered out of the windows at giant trees that looked tiny; they were so far below.

  We found home for the night.

  Much later, I awoke to stir the midnight embers of our fire. Red galaxies appeared as I stirred, and sounded like crackling glass. A moonbeam broke through the canopy to illuminate the wolf, who lolled its tongue from the doorway of our cave. A thought knocked on my still-dreaming brain. It remembered the turquoise stone with a hole in it, which I acquired at the Festival market. I took it out and peered through it.

  An indigo aura radiated from the wolf, who now sat among wisps of haze. Puddle was having a funny dream because he giggled in his sleep. I didn’t want to wake him, so I unobtrusively rolled over in pretend sleep, and kept going until I steamrolled over him.

  He woke up and I handed him the stone to peer through. His expression let me know he definitely didn’t mind waking up.

  We walked toward the wolf, who led the way down the hill and over a small brook. The wolf sat again and looked at me as if it expected something. My blank face changed when the idea hit. I bent to let water flow through the hole in the stone. That water appeared indigo. Puddle and I splashed our eyes with the indigo water, and we could see the aura around the wolf without the aid of the stone.

  We followed the wolf further, over logs and around bo
ulders, past walls of rock and moonlit awe. Notes of Otherworldly music floated through the forest, faint as the whisper of a faraway bee. Someone had lit a fire that burned orange and indigo in the center of a glade. The wolf led us to the edge, where figures danced in a circle.

  At the Festival, each dance felt like it had a Purpose, and each Purpose was charged with change, and I loved every moment. These figures danced in order to dance. They flowed around the fire like water around rocks. Their movements narrated elements of fire, water, wind, and land.

  Puddle took out a flute gifted to him by the Elders. He added notes of moondust to the Otherworldly tones. As they echoed off each other, the world rewrote itself. It took off its glamour, and the beauty underneath wasn’t beautiful because it looked nice. It was beautiful because it was real, and a little gritty. It was full of unknowns and questions. It was vulnerable, but transmuted fear into trust.

  Through the music, the frayed ends of the desire to connect rewove themselves and connected.

  I joined the dancers. They were wild and timeless, and they danced because they loved to dance. Their bodies told the stories of their lives. Their steps were real, and elemental. And they would dance their dance, just as the wind would howl on a blustery night.

  I moved because I had a body, and it had a story to tell. I wove my story with the other dancers. We danced for each other. We danced our appreciation for the mysteries and the unknowns. We danced for trust.

  I spun over to the wolf, who still sat at the edge of the circle, and thanked it. It lolled its tongue, which looked like a smile enough. Between one blink and the next, I awoke to find that morning happened. The fire was cold charcoal. Puddle was politely snoring in a pile of leaves. By the time I finished making peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, he woke.

  Onward.

  *~*

  Refractions and Returns

  The waterfall was as tall as two and a half fully grown Oaks. Dragonflies, the size of sparrows, sunned themselves in the rainbow spray. Mud deposits had built up on the rocks to form lumpy walls for overlapping pools. Moss covered the muddy rocks, and everything smelled of earth, cool and loamy, with a hint of limestone. Steps had been carved in the natural stone, and descended into the main pool. I put a toe in the gemstone quality water and pulled it back out, red as rubies.

  “That’s far enough,” I told myself and Puddle. “Too cold.”

  “We did not swim at all yesterday,” objected Puddle.

  “Good point.”

  We descended into the water. My body shook. I slowed my breath and calmed my mind. My body stilled as well. I stepped back out anyway. It was like shards of glass cutting cold into my legs

  Puddle had no qualms. He looked back to wink like a sass cat, and somewhere in my brain I thought the vague indigo glow where he touched the water was strange, and that the surface reflected in such a way that I couldn’t see anything that had already stepped below.

  He disappeared under the water, and did not resurface.

  “Puddle!” I yelled, as if voices traveled into pools that were continuously splashed by massive waterfalls.

  Why did it have to be so cold?

  I ran in.

  My body went numb as my head went under. My brain went numb when it realized my body was suddenly not feeling the temperature, and I flailed like a duck caught in a six-pack plastic ring.

  My spluttering head surfaced. The water must have been the same temperature as my body because it felt like nothing at all. Perhaps these were Caht’s hot springs. Bubbles collected on the bottom of the pool, and tickled my back as they rose. My limbs were extra buoyant, and my arms floated as I stood on the stones. I looked over at a tree that held up the ceiling. It was impossible. Trees didn’t grow in caverns, not like that.

  “Puddle!” I yelped, and then giggled because of the bubbles. “You’re here.”

  “Where are we?” he asked, covered in rainbows.

  “I asked Caht to invite you here,” said a voice that sounded patient as the moon.

  A woman, round and majestic as the moon that matched the voice, stood at the edge of our pool.

  “Hello Birch. Hello Puddle. My name is Nimupara,” continued the voice. “Welcome to my grotto. Float a while and feel refreshed.”

  We spoke our gratitude.

  The water hugged any weariness away from our bodies, and when we stepped out of the pool, we felt like opuntia flowers in the desert after a good rain.

  “Are you hungry?” Nimupara asked, and gestured toward a rock table, laden with fruits and little cakes.

  I knew lore, and looked for pomegranates. “Will we get stuck in this Underworld if we eat your food?”

  “You are my invited guests. I asked Caht to tell you the way. You are safe and can leave whenever you want.”

  “I don’t want to be rude,” I began, “but this might be abrupt. Why did you invite us here?”

  “You interest me because you have learned to waterjump without initiation. I also have business to discuss, partly because of your waterjumping abilities. That is not of the moment. Please, eat and rest first. I am glad you are here. I do not invite many guests into my home.”

  “But when you do, you sure show hospitality. Thank you,” I said.

  “You do us great honor. Thank you,” added Puddle.

  A turtle entered through the pool from which Puddle and I had just stepped. It had a basket filled with our things in its beaky mouth.

  “Thank you Beppu,” said Nimupara. “These are the saplings, Birch and Puddle. This is my dear friend, Beppu.”

  “Hello,” said Puddle. “Thank you for bringing these.”

  “No worries,” said Beppu with the voice of tumbling rocks.

  “Hello and thank you,” I echoed. “Shall we dress to eat?”

  “Feel comfortable to do so, or stay as you are,” said Nimupara. “Please eat. I’ll be right back.”

  I was comfortable in my birthday suit, as was Puddle. The temperature was just as comfortable. Most of the bounty of various fruits that Nimupara offered was strange to me. They were all delicious. I’ve never known a little cake to disagree with my taste buds, either.

  “You should check out the mud baths,” rumbled Beppu as we filled up on fruit. “They do wonders for skin.”

  Beppu had the scaly, knobby skin of a turtle who spent most of its time sitting on half submerged logs.  It looked beautiful and healthy.

  “I think Nimupara wanted to talk about something first,” I smiled. “But thank you.”

  I offered her a grape.

  “So, Beppu,” I started, “what do you love?”

  “I love grapes. Thank you. I love walking along the bottoms of murky ponds. I love working with Nimupara. We have been friends for a long time. I repair her portal windows because I am not limited by the portals themselves. Many worlds began on the backs of turtles, and I am a descendent of World Turtles. That means I can swim through space, between worlds.”

  “Doesn’t that take a long time?” I asked. “Like light years?”

  “Only if you’re stuck in time.”

  Nimupara returned with a coin in her hand. She handed it to me, and I immediately felt balanced in all ways. I handed it to Puddle.

  “This is Picea,” she explained. “I use these to bring balance to places in need. These are created during certain meetings. Puddle, you carry one coin that needs to be at the meeting. It is called Quercus.”

  “This?” he asked as he took a similar coin from his bag.

  “Yes. Birch, you have the other. It’s named Crataegus.”

  My mind went to the bird box in my room on Earth. “Mhmm,” I agreed.

  “They nearly met several days ago. Their meeting was already late. I had hoped it would just happen, but sometimes we have to actually put the request in words. That is why I asked you here. I wanted to meet you both, and also request that you bring Quercus and Crataegus together.”

  “We are glad to meet you,” said Puddle, while I nodd
ed agreement. He turned to me, “Here, perhaps you should hang on to this. You know where the other one is.”

  I put it in my pocket, and asked Nimupara, “How do we get back to Earth?”

  “I have a particular pool in my grotto. It leads to the place where you need to go the most. There is a place deep in each of us that knows where we need to be. It nudges, then it knocks, then it gets extreme. Sometimes there is nowhere we need to be, and we are left to enjoy our time as we will. However, when we need to be somewhere, that internal alarm clock buzzes until we get there. This pool reads that spot, and opens that portal. The sooner you make this meeting happen, the better.”

  “Thank you for the food,” I said.

  “And the cakes,” added Puddle. He turned to me. “Are you ready?”

  “You are both welcome to visit again, however, I cannot be disturbed abruptly,” she handed each of us what appeared to be a pearl. “Take these. Place them in a pool. If they begin to glow, it means I have answered and the portal here will open to you.”

  We thanked her with hugs, and turned back to the pool and her request of us. We stepped forward and onward.

  *~*

  Puddle’s fingers gripped rock as he pulled himself from the portal. The water was held in a basin in a room. The walls were familiar. The specific scent of the stone flooded him with memories. He was home, and had climbed from his family’s water alter.

  His sister walked into the doorway. She screamed, while tears erupted and flowed behind her as she leaped toward her brother.

  Other family members ran into the room to see what the screaming was all about, and added to it. Hugs and love flowed free as rain in a storm. Everyone gazed at each other, calm now, to see what changes had happened while Puddle was away, as was more traditional. Each gazed at the other’s changes, and, while love was still present, dissent built up like pus in a wound.

  -Accusations began. You left us! You abandoned us!

  -I did not mean to.

  -Nobody leaves on accident!

  -I returned.

  -You were irresponsible!

  -I am sorry I left so abruptly. I know that was discourteous. I love you.

  -Silence.

  -His sister stepped forward.

  -We are sorry we pushed you to marry Amaryna. It made you leave.