A 2022 Story, Part 3

A 2022 Story

Part 3*

Nudge, nudge. Tap, tap. There it was again!  A pattern, far from random.

Little Stream was weary from the effort of holding herself together for an unknown number of suns and moons. Could she summon the energy to speak again? Try. I’ll try, she thought. Her voice rose again, but it was small and weak. Ha-hello?  There was no answering sound.

A picture appeared in Little’s watery mind, an image of a rivulet that looked quite like her. She saw this tiny snake of liquid being gobbled up by the mightier forces of river after raging river, each successively bigger than the last. She watched the rivulet weaken and fade away into all that rushing. Her internal voice spoke sharply. No! This is not why I am here!  Someone is reaching out to me. I have to find a way.

Tired as she was, she could still feel the small reverberations of that tap, tap, nudge nudge. She’d never asked her own liquid edges to reach towards other waters, but she was desperate to make contact. Gathering her waters even closer, she peeled some of her resolve from its assigned vigilance and willed her underbelly to push outside her lines. Push! Push!

Exhausted by the effort, not at all sure she’d managed to make any impression into the neighboring waters, she waited. Nothing. No nudge or tap in response. Again, she told herself.  Let’s try again. Pull in tight, push out hard. Once, twice, three times she pressed mightily into the waters just below her own. It was then that she felt it—a distinct nudge, nudge, nudge. Three pushes, just like her own!

Little was elated! A surge of hope sprang up inside, zigzagging and bouncing off her edges, creating a little clearing in her discolored body. She gathered more energy and asked her belly to do it again—push. Push again.  A moment later, that same area registered two distinct nudges in response.

Now, this nudging and pushing and tapping was surely amazing. She was perkier than she’d been in…well, as many moons and suns might’ve passed since she was swallowed up by Big River. But what can it mean, these gentle patterned jostles? How to introduce herself properly and find out just who or what wanted to commune with her?  Best to try speaking again, she thought. And if it turns out I need to learn a whole new language, so be it.

Hello?  Bolder now. Hello, I am Little Stream. who’s there? She quieted as much as possible within the ongoing clamor of the larger river, straining to hear.  It was then an answer came, small but clear:

“I am Lily. Wee Lily Pond. Or, umm, I used to be.”

A Lily Pond?  Well, how on earth did you end up in Big River?  Little Stream wondered aloud.

“Well, I could ask the same of you!” Lily gurgled in a friendly tone.

To Be Continued…

You can read Part 2 here:

https://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-2/