I was a little stoned, watching a stream that bled across the beach, down into the waves and the setting sun.
I was reading the little stream. The flowing water was a script in its every dip and turn. I stood gracing her with my eyes for so long that she took notice of me. Now streams are typically very old and she was no exception. Therefore they don't usually bother with us.
I was looking so intently at her that she evidently recognized me.
"Your whole family has always looked the same. I remember your grandfather when he knelt to drink of my waters. He took me in his hands and I nourished him. That was when the hills and forests shook from guns and fire. All the villagers were scattered. That was the time."
The moonlight flashed in all her hundred rivulets.
I remembered my grandfather, his swirly white hair, the scars of bullet holes in both his legs. He smiled and laughed when he saw my brother and I.
"Yes. He drank of my waters and was refreshed; I gave him strength to carry on. Now you are here because of me."
I looked at the bubbling creak. Her spring ushered from underneath an ugly slab of concrete. The hole was dark and deep.
I began pulling the garbage and litter from her body as a slight repayment of my ancestral obligation towards her.
I cleaned the plastic bottles from her hair. I rooted out her Styrofoam splinters and the buried plastic bags that poisoned her bed.
There was a pair of men's boxers, old and ragged, lodged into the fine sand of the stream. I uprooted the garment. I made a pile of junk pulled from her spinning torso, the tendrils of her hair, from her winding legs.
I put the garbage in a big black trash bag and hauled it all away.
The moon was very slight and flashy that night, like she were in an elegant mood.
I walked back to the stream to admire her, liberated and invigorated.
I followed the curves of her manifold streams. I was reading her again. To my surprise, there, on a flat white stone, her waters had molded the face of my grandfather.
I just nodded in acknowledgment. I felt like I should try to be more awake in life.
