Writer about a log floating in the water…

Can you see it? There! About twenty feet out, it’s longer than your arm – thicker than your leg. Do you see how that branch comes out from the side, and looks like an arm? Can you see how the fingers stretch and reach towards the sky?

I imagine most of it is below the water line. If there is one branch sticking up, how many more must be reaching down? Three, four maybe. Big, hairy, gnarled arms trailing into the water.

Do you think there are fish swimming in and out, like a playground? This is a pretty big lake, after all. I bet there are some bluegill down there, maybe a sunfish, or a bass. Have the Asian Carp made it here yet? They were all over in that last place we went, remember? Such a problem, though I didn’t understand why. Couldn’t we just catch a lot of them? Maybe eat them, too. You know hwy they’re always talking about starving children in Africa? We could catch those Asian Carp and send them over there so they could eat them.

Do you know how deep this lake is? I bet it’s at least like ten feet deep. I dove in off the back of my friend’s boat last summer, and I tried to touch the bottom, you know, like you do when you’re at the pool? I went down and down, reaching with my fingers. I knew I was goin to touch the mud, but I never felt anything. I felt my ears get tighter, you know, with the pressure and all, but it never stopped. I probably kicked five or six times, and when I do that at the pool I only need to kick two or three and I can touch the bottom. That’ about eleven feet deep. So this is probably a lot deeper. Maybe I was going sideways, but then the pressure wouldn’t have been getting stronger and stronger, would it?

I wonder if we could dive off this boat now, what we would see. Would we scare those fish away? Do you think they would let us touch them? I think it would be creepy to touch a fish. Do you think they can feel things through their scales? Do they have nerves out there? Can they move those scales? You know, like birds can ruffle their feathers. That would be cool! Imagine if you saw a fish, just swimming in its tank, and then it ruffled its scales when it got scared, or threatened. That would look pretty exciting.

Oooh! What if you saw a dragon do that? Can you imagine, a forty-foot long dragon ruffling its scales, and breathing fire, and flexing its wings, and clenching its talons? I bet you’d crap your pants, you’d be so scared.