A WALK

RED PEBBLE CREEK

 

The cool babbling brook running into and thru the tall saw grass sings to me. Little orphaned ducks paddle from side to side, ducking their shiny green and blue feathers into the water. They glide and dip, glide and dip. I stand on my slightly chilled toes as the clear, clean water ignores me and flows forward. The ducks don't seem to shiver as they disappear into the thick saw grass where there must be plenty of insects to keep them happy. A vision of the little insects crying for their mothers, the mothers laying more eggs to replace their lost families, makes me choke up.

 

I start to cough, then wheeze deep in my chest. My heart races, worries me that I am alone. A long, dark gray cloud, looking somewhat like an anaconda waiting to swallow a fluff of white meat, sneaks in and
out the white ones. The sun has not a second to waste. She rises higher in the sky, hits noon. There is total silence around me. A mumbling starts. The low groaning of thunder worries me. Rain drops start falling but don't touch me. My hand reaches to feel them but there is a shield I cannot penetrate. The raindrops sink into the earth.

 

Red Pebble Creek no longer flows. It races, chases away the ducks.  Oh god, the wet soil is creeping quickly up thru the shield that has kept me dry. My shoes are so heavy I can't move at all. What is happening to me? Am I going to die? Will my mother ever find me? With my shoulders I try to sway my cage. It moves. It moves a fraction of an inch and I stop myself. What am I doing? If I fall over, I will surely be done for.

 

Something hard and loud strikes the doom that is around me. The slits of my eyes let me see a pebble, a red pebble, in the mud. One after another they hit, they crack open my prison. It falls away and I am free. The creek babbles again. .

 

My mother is outside our house, waiting for me to come home from school. She begins to scold me for being so late, but I stop her, hand her the story I had to write for class and tell her I got the only A plus in writing. Miss Baker thinks I should take a course in writing because I have, really do have, talent.  Mother smiles, takes my story and me into the living room. She smiles even wider and tells me she will save it for after dinner so I can read it aloud for her and my daddy.

 

I'll wait.