Opened my eyes Saturday morning and saw them, the spots on my wall, shape shifters as I stared, light spots streaming though from the window. As I watched they turned into sounders, that’s what I nicknamed them the first time they spoke. “Hey there in a choppy voice the one said. Want to be like us?” Coming in from the window like a benthic creature swims, rearranged light spots from the source, bottom dwellers decorating the tops of things. Scratching my head and squinting at the voice I didn’t have an answer. It was quiet as the sounder made an impression on the wall. Long time waiting for an answer as I stared. There is nothing left to hear I thought. I got out of bed and looked out the window. A funny way to start the day with shadows decorating the wall asking me if I’d like to do the same. In the shower the droplets of water dripping downward were heading somewhere. Always heading somewhere I thought as I stepped out holding on to a few. It was a nice day that had settled in compared to yesterday when I opened my front door. The sunlight turning on lights in a way that made the outside sparkle, yes alive is the right word I thought crossing the street. Around the corner is a park people like to walk through and if you go far enough in you come to a huge lake. It’s part of the waterway system in my neighborhood. Actually if you rent a boat you can float on out even further than you might figure I suppose. Never tried but I heard from some of my friends it’s likely that’s true. Seems Kenny knows someone who knows someone who did. He’s my best friend, known him now for a couple of years. When we first met he was busy writing in a bookstore, literally piles of paper in a heap. I sat down and it just came out, “You got yourself busy.”He looked up and smiled and said yah this is how I write. He said he preferred it this way, something about the pen against the paper. It’s the way he said it though. Like a voice from the past coming through. Not a clue, but I liked him immediately. Writers need friends we were both thinking as we kept talking to each other that day. Kenny is the kind of person who enjoys tall tales, I think he finds them amusing and more to the point they contain imaginative versions of reality that slip out of corners onto a stage waiting for applause.. Next time I see Kenny I’ll have to tell him this one. The water turned curious as the boat approached. Before it entered I wondered what would happen to it. Would it skim the surface and turn into a thousand ripples. The boatbuilder had tried to make it as specified when asked by the strange man who had entered his shop explaining what he needed. It was a conversation difficult to understand. He was long past his expiration it appeared. Tall and lost for words as he spoke, it was as if the words themselves had already turned into his request. Had already been bent and brayed into sounds far off and fettered into another world. I was trying though in a corner of the shop watching this man speak. Trying to understand why he sought to have this boat made. The boatmaker appeared perplexed and finally and rapidly told the wayward gent he’d try. The afternoon light was receding through the boatbuilder’s window as the man turned to leave with a slight grin on his face. I’ll be waiting for your call. Was this then the completed boat. One that could bend and bray. The sounds themselves finding another place in water twisted and turned into a vortex for the boat to enter. Or was it the water itself the boat had discovered. Of course I had seen this before, reflections from water no longer quiet. Things within disrupted. Trees and people on the surface transformed into the water’s hold on them. The water’s movement catching its host and performing. The man in the shop wasn’t asking for this though. He wanted the boat made for another reason. Copyright Susy Kamber