Puddle
By pod
- 333 reads
William was deep in thought as he turned on to the canal path
leading up towards his house. As he walked he scuffed his shoes through
the grit and earth sending small stones skittering ahead of him. It was
slowly growing dark, and he was late for tea, but William always
dawdled walking home. It was his time for imagining. Sometimes he was a
famous astronaut, the first to walk on Mars. Other times he was an
inventor working in a cluttered laboratory full of spiral tubes and
strange bubbling liquids. Today though, William was concentrating on
his favourite daydream in which he was an enourmous Red Dragon.
Breathing out columns of flame and smoke, he would terrify the
occupants of small villages and eat all the little girls he could find.
William didn't much like girls. All the ones he knew either screamed a
lot or giggled at everything, and he couldn't imagine them ever wanting
to be dragons. Ignoring the gathering rain clouds he continued to
stroll up the muddy path, thinking to himself.
Suddenly William was startled from his daydream by a loud "Plop", as if
someone had dropped a large stone down a deep well. Turning slightly he
saw that the surface of a nearby puddle was rippling outwards in
circles. Something had fallen in to it, probably one of the pebbles
he'd been kicking at, but there was a strange quality about this
puddle, and that plopping sound had been unusually loud. Bending
closer, William noticed that this puddle was a perfect circle and a
deep midnight blue colour. He also noticed that he couldn't see his own
reflection in its surface, in fact he couldn't see anything reflected
at all.
Straightening up William looked around slowly, as if perhaps searching
for the owner of this mysterious pool. It seemed so out of place here,
he almost thought it would make more sense that someone might have
dropped it accidentally, while rummaging in their pockets for loose
change. The sky looked stormy but the wind had died, and the air was
silent. There was no-one about. Bending down again, William tentatively
uncurled his index finger and dipped it in to the pool. The liquid felt
luke-warm against his skin, and when he removed his finger again it was
coated in a sticky thin layer of blue.
Wiping his finger thoroughly on the leg of his jeans, William decided
that some proper investigations would have to be conducted. He began to
search under the bushes and in the weeds that grew all along the side
of the path. Soon he found what he was looking for. A sturdy straight
stick, approximately the length of his arm from shoulder to wrist.
William had learned in school that a good scientist must measure
everything accurately before experimenting. So he planned to use the
stick to measure the depth of the pool. Slowly he lowered the stick
down in to the strange liquid. A few inches in and William expected to
feel some resistance as the stick sunk in to the muddy bottom. He did
not. The stick continued to decend, six inches; twelve; this pool was
deep. Soon he would have to put his whole hand in. Rolling up his
sleeve William emersed his arm up to the elbow. Still there was no sign
of the bottom.
...................................................................
I have yet to complete this story, but I know what the basic plot is. I
thought I'd submit it anyway for possible feedback!
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