There's a girl I sometimes see by the creek. She comes and dips her toes in the water and giggles. Sometimes I spy her reading a book under the tree. It's often an adventure book like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Lord of the Rings. Even more often, it's in languages that I can't understand.
She bears a curious magic, this girl. It is a very powerful magic, but I have yet to identify its type. When she reads, for example, her fingers will grow into the pages themselves (or the pages grow into her, I am not sure which way it goes exactly), so the two are seamlessly connected. When the pages turn, it's a singular, breezy movement that mirrors the simple grace of the stream. I am not sure if she is turning the pages, or she is letting the pages turn her. I say, "letting the pages turn her" because in my mind, there is no doubt that she is controlling -- or at least granting -- this strange and beautiful dance. Much like a conductor who over-watches the flowing sections that make a unified piece.
I have never seen her fishing, but I have noticed a string of fishing line tied around her ankle that carries a row of hooked fish. The line runs perfectly through the bottom of their lower lips, and they are evenly spaced. They drag and bump on the ground as she walks. At first I noticed about six behind her, but now the number has risen to a dozen. Sometimes the new ones will flop and fight the way fish do, but they eventually succumb and fade, turning into raw lumps of flesh that tear apart as they are dragged.
The most curious thing is, in my opinion, the fact that she doesn't even notice them. She giggles at bloated toads and paces with her books, but her gaze never touches the line, nor her step falter under its weight.
I have studied with fascination, wherever I could -- under the dock, by the water's edge in the reeds, in the shallows -- and now suddenly, at the end of the line behind the other fish.
