The pull to the water’s edge, the mystic glass that sees fortune and tragedy.
She slowly approached the water’s edge, eyeing the reeds to avoid the glinting surface.


In a distant place, the seeping warm colors tinted the early morning sky, like the blush on lover’s cheeks. The flowers began their early morning exercises, phototropism toward their warm god. The trees took of color and shed their mask of masquerading midnight, when hero becomes thief and a little bit of nothing.
But perhaps most notable was not this ritual, for it always happened after all—for as long as all the carbon organisms could remember.
From behind laced, white curtains, eyelids fluttered, greeting the sun with grace in some cases, and distain in most. Pupils dilated, hands felt for glasses, slippers and clothing. The sun rose to shine off the ebony roofing tiles, the reflection not quite the heat mirage it would soon be. Windows opened and let in the smells of slowly wakening world, the breakfast of the soul.
But perhaps most notable was not this ritual, for it always happened after all—for as long as all apartment dwellers could remember.
There is the familiar thawp against the front door. News, the world, hitting, touching, shaking the last remnants of dreamland from eyelashes. The newspaper, which many feel should be outlawed, serves to remind that life outside contented lace windows it not pretty and not colored white.  Serves to remind that dollars earn are being taken and are lacking in other places. Serves to remind that on Sunday it will rain. Life. The world. Disgusting. Coffee seems both the stimulant and the anti-drug to such feelings, for it tucks the dream world far away, but its strength gives the backbone a firm hug: today will be okay, it says.
But perhaps most notable was not this ritual, for it always happened after all—for as long as all coffee addicts can remember.

The sun also awoke the water, shinning crystal jewels into its eyes. The streams preferred the setting sun that light clouds from behind with soft blue colors, colors to be emulated. But the afternoon brought more wealth and Narcissus feel in love with his image once more. The magic pull of the glinting water, gold beneath the surface and in the image.
She feared the banks, feared their power. The sun showed too much of water’s true nature: to leave, to carry away, and the make fade the corpses that fell within. Pooh Sticks is a game that sends little things too far away, bid goodbye to your little stick.

The spring has cool tastes, as opposed to the sugary feel of the summer, as it sticks to your skin, seeping. With it, come the summer tragedies, the summer victories and the summer slumbers. The desire to partake in summer pastimes of fireworks and circuses, and swirling rides. Part of our organs dream of the cool of fall and the taste of the air, fresh and clean. Summer air is so dirty with expectations, with promises that we’ve made ourselves but faithfully never kept. It’s the nature of such a time.
The nature of her toes was to point, in waking and the rest. As she lay folded between the sheets, her toes pointed forward, as if reaching to touch something, perhaps with expectations of their own, perhaps finishing a last dream dance. In life, they were also pointed and carried her on tip toe across cool pine floors, across prickly lawns and murky ponds. The feet of someone not quite sure of themselves. Neither were her eyes.
Her environment, however, was quite sure of itself. A resident behind lacy, white curtains, she was part of the morning wake-up.

The water calls to other creatures, strangers to this land that walk the noon time, when the world parts the silken skies in two.  The water seems like their land and they rest upon it, like water sliders. And they skip, across its surface, onto the remaining drew droplets on the grass. Skip and materialize. Skip, and grown. Skip and become themselves. Tantalizing.
She sees them dancing and skipping on the other side of the bank. Sees the maidens perching their watery flowing bodies on the rocks and pebbles, posing for the sun. Their skin glistens like the water now, and turns them into jewels. Sky, water jewels. Alluring.

Perhaps the most fatal tragedy of the summer is that socks cannot fall in love. That socks remain stashed in drawers. Her toes feel the hardness of the pine floors, their cool touch. The socks miss the floor, miss the gliding and perhaps the floor misses them too. The bright fuchsia tights miss strappy shoes and nights on the town. They feel particularly attractive under city lights. But summers are too hot for leg coverings.
Usually. Except for when it rains. Then the rules change. That’s what water does, sliding into crevices and staying there. Minerals adorning it like ornaments; it’s quite the night-outer and very dressed up. It’s always an occasion when the rain comes.
Socks love rain the most, rain that seeps into the drawer and pull them out onto pointed toes. The socks feel the worn lining of black boots with laces. Socks feel warm and slightly wet treading puddles. Yes, they love water.

The rain came after the noon day split. Came like dark forces, like penetrating eyes and gossipy whispers, came like laughter from strangers that cause you to fall down. But it came with power, with authority and the sky must comply and abandoned its artistic blue attempt. For black. Like iron gates, for sky creatures that lounge on pebbles and rocks. Who realize that the dew is getting cold and their jeweled skin is wearing off.

Newspapers also contain trivia and horoscopes. Trivia, which no one knows but everyone attempts anyway and horoscopes that all together too many people ignore. The horoscope print wishes someone would. Like a self replicating virus, newspaper ink can only replicate once it is implanted on fingers. Then it propagates onto white blouses and nice pants, tip toes across white skins and shiny faucets, until a clean apartment is infected. The headline news ink is the most powerful. The horoscope ink aspires to be such a power.
Had they had the chance to exercise their desires, perhaps socks would not have met rain and pointed toes would not have met destines with water. But horoscope ink stayed on the newspaper. Yes, it would have loved more power.

The rain fell, following gravity. Some have speculated that it would rather float and cause more havoc for eyes, for drivers and for plants that count on it reproductively. It’s rather selfish. Or maybe it fears its fate on the ground, realizing that the collision is something more than expected.  Expected is the grass, the piercing tips, expected is the leaf and the bird and the rock. But rain is not expected on sun days, when noon day suns crack worlds apart. So the rain is not prepared, not armored in little balls to beat down the surprises below.
The mystic water powers. The sky creatures turn elegant faces upward, knowing the new medium awaits. A way to grow, to rise and the live. To live while it rains and dance, with arms looped together, to exist on this Earth of Earth that graces limbs with gravity. Oh, they long for the feeling, magical.
And they skate now, in each other’s arms. They pull the magic from the rain, and leave the drop to land with beating crashes harder and harder, as they dances faster and faster. Typhoons and hurricanes. Tsunamis and tornadoes. Like hugs and kisses, spinning faster and faster. But they feel the end and their anger grows. There is not enough magic in the rain, in the leaves, in the grass. They need more carbon, more oxygen, more life.

The socks were in rupture. The marshy grasses contain the rain so well as pointed toes carry out a dance of jubilation. As rain hits arms and as the stream draws closer. A stream whose sunlight reflection she fears. But how the reeds look gray, not golden and the air seems free of sticky jewels. Free enough to breathe without chocking. Free enough to bottle in jars and keep on the mantel for then hot noon, world splitting worlds return. Those jars will fend off the sugary flavors, thinks the owner of pointed toes, lifting a jar in hand. Lifting and not seeing the danger below. The danger of mystic water, of hot days that turn rain, of the desire for carbon, of magic. The socks are bathed in love and the jar shatters across rocks. The shards make ornaments for muddy banks.

They dance, renewed once again. Dance as the rain concludes. Dance as the clouds begin to part and the world beings to split.

Thwap. The newspaper said rain on Sunday.