Distance was walking through the forest. She had sort of wanted to follow a brook just to see where it went. She was interested in seeing if there was some shale she could bring home with herself. She was about ankle deep in the water when she started walking. It was just a small brook that was fun for her to play in. She had to be careful though because there was algae on the rocks which made it slick.
She saw that there were low hanging branches up ahead so she carefully stopped moving forward and decided instead to walk to the side and go around. She was alone.
She looked down and decided that she should take off her shoes but then something told her that she would be better off keeping them on as though Yes she would have better grip with her feet, but it was far more dangerous to go barefoot down this brook.
She was looking down the sides of the forest and she noticed that there were groups of gnats flying in almost spheres of activity just floating in the air. She turned her iPod off and decided to just listen to the forest itself.
She was walking further down the brook and she noticed that the water was about up to her knees now and she was kind of excited. It was her first time going down this path of water and she just wanted to see where it led, because she wanted some shale.
She walked further but as she was going further it was becoming more and more difficult to walk but the experience alone was interesting to her.
She looked down and actually saw a black fish swimming beside her. It just kind of followed her. She was a little taken aback.
So she splashed at it. It swam away and she didn’t think anything of it.
Then she walked a little bit further ahead and there were now two fishes on either side of her. One of them was black and the other three were silverish orange colors. She laughed a little to herself. Fish.
She decided not to splash these fish. It would take away the fun of watching what they did. She kept walking.
Up ahead there was a small waterfall. That was probably where she would find her shale.
She noticed that the water had gone up to her thighs and the four fish had now become about eight and there were two purple fish and a yellow one and a green one.
She had never seen a green fish.
Distance was now noticing that up ahead she could hear the sound of what sounded like an actual waterfall. She thought to herself that maybe she should turn back. The fish were up ahead of her now and they were sort of slowly forming a wall.
Distance thought to herself.
Maybe this would be a good time to turn back.
So she turns around and starts to go back to camp. Thinking to herself that quite possibly there was shale in the other direction up stream, as opposed to down stream.
She takes a look over her shoulder and because she can hear what sounds like heavy water flow. She considers for a brief second that the forest is more magical than she can imagine so in that she is going to for once just pay attention to something. Like some fish.
Well she gets herself going upstream a bit and she notices that the water is receding down her leg and in so doing, she notices that her pants are slightly more wet than she would imagine.
The fish that were following her in a group have been replaced by the single black fish.
It does a little jump out of the water and Distance notices that it has a silver line down its back.
She likes the black fish.
Distance stops walking.
The black fish stops swimming.
Distance takes a step to the side.
The black fish takes a step to the side with her.
Distance moves closer to the black fish and reaches out to touch it.
At that moment, she hears some of her friends calling for her.
Steven calls out to her. “Distance, how far down did you go down the brook?”
Distance says, “I went down to where the water was almost up to my waist.”
Steven and some other people look slightly worried.
“Distance, you just got up this morning and started walking, you could have gotten lost or worse.” said Jessica.
“I wanted to find some shale.” said Distance.
“We already collected some shale, we have plenty.” said Jeremy.
“There were some fish that let me know something.” said Distance.
“What?” said Steven.
“That , well , I might not have wanted the shale as badly as I thought.” said Distance.
“Okay, Distance. Yeah.” said Jeremy the one that was raised in the City.
Distance thought to herself. “I know exactly what I saw. The city really wouldn’t know much about the magic of the forest.”
So Distance rejoined her group. She went and noticed that they had indeed found some shale without her. She did not know where.
Not that it mattered.