The water: brown as old brake fluid. The rock: smooth, flat and dry. I'd come with a notebook. I'd meant to write a letter. The fish: brown and green and silver. Dying, stranded on its side. Tail snapping on rock, hard, like a sheet in the wind. The slope: gentle. The mud: shallow. I was wearing boots. I snapped my book closed, started toward the fish, but found myself turning toward home and breakfast. Light, like a sheet in the breeze, I herded a hollow can more than halfway home. Some things are better left unsaid. Some things aren't worth saving.
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