The Peculiar Wanderer
The sun blazed down, soft and gentleA breeze ran rampant through the evergreens
The water, cold and foreboding, origins from mountains high
Laughter of children, playing under the watchful gaze of parents,
Muffled, distant, the water: a barrier, a window
Sleek, small, and curious, the minnows investigate
This newcomer, a stranger in their land passes slowly, gangly unsuited for the water,
Seeking, searching, for what?
The minnows do not know, so they follow
The wanderer pauses, a smile spreads as they fan the sandy bottom
One brave minnow swims forward to see what the drifter has found
Food? Shelter?
No, the wanderer holds a shiny circle,
Tinted with green and brown in their malformed fins
The minnow glides closer, stops, the circle is useless to it
But the wanderer leaps from the water triumphant
They shed their unusual fins
And tromp back towards shore, their pockets jingling with trash and treasure.
The Wanderer Returns
A familiar yet strange figure pads along the sharp stone shoreThey wear a new sleek inky skin and carry new fins that smell of salt
They slip into the veil, the window
The water is freezing this day, the sky is dark, still the wanderer drifts on
The minnows school to the wanderer, trailing them
The drifter does not search with such tenacity this time
Perhaps the wanderer is burnt
The minnows had felt the boiling heat on their shiny scales
The green spikes outside are now black and dead, some had even fallen, piercing the veil
The brave one, now grown swims closer to the wanderer
The wander is not leaking red, nor it blackened or charred
The brave minnow could not fathom why the wanderer now only drifts
The wanderer moved their strange fin, and began to swat the sand
Brave one swam closer, this time it did not expect food or shelter
It knew the wanderer was not after such things
The brave one glimpsed what the drifter held
Shiny, smooth, flat, red lightning sparkling across the surface, a rough jagged edge
A piece of an unfinished puzzle
The wanderer slipped the item into their pouch
How strange the wanderer is, with their gangly limbs, and ill adapted lungs
Simply a miracle that they have not been eaten or died
The drifter left sooner than normal, padding back to the shore
The minnows did not think much of it, their minds were fast on finding worms and avoiding the monsters that lurked beyond the drop-off
Besides, it had been a strange year already, what was this to compare.
The Wanderer's Book
The Sanded One tread softly upon the shifting groundSearching, yet not for treasure, but that which would be called trash
Not to relive the objects of their status, but to sate his own fresh anger
The Sanded One despised the trespassers,
For they killed his reef, left their refuse for him to clean up, and harassed him
The Sanded One hated the trespassers with his very being
A blink of white and orange catches his sharp stormy eye
The Sanded One reaches down. A book.
Dusted with sand and water damaged
The book was not one of the contemporary paperbacks that held no interest
It boasted a elegantly painted Giant Pacific Octopus on its cover
A Guide to Mollusks of the Pacific Coast
This… This was new
The Sanded one had never found an item like this before
Sure he had found books, but not ones like this
The Sanded One opened the printed piece of knowledge
In a scrawl of letters the book was claimed
Property of the Wanderer
If Lost please return by May 22,
If found after the date, please keep
The Sanded One cringed, this book belonged to a tresspasser
He was tempted to throw the book away
But, something stopped, something called
This book, it belonged to someone who cared, who didn't mindlessly trash
As The Sanded One, stood on the now clean sands
He wondered, if…just if, he could, someday,
Return this knowledge to the one called The Wanderer