Oops! Excuse me, sir or madam frog, I didn't mean to startle you by dropping my empty pill container. I just came to spend a few lingering minutes beside your pond.
I'll bet that cool water was a bit of a shock after becoming so nice and warm in the sun, eh?
I knew where you were because, when your eyes broke the surface, they caused tiny concentric circles to ripple out from your position.
I won't bother you. Climb back upon your dry rock and together we will contemplate the meaning of life as reflected in your pond.
Gorgeous day, isn't it? I just came here to enjoy a last few moments of peace before...before escaping to...whatever.
Your existence here must be a damn sight easier than what we humans have to endure.
You don't believe me? Consider those whirligigs. Watch how they meander and glide within an unspecified boundary, their double-lenses searching above and below the waterline as if attempting to see two worlds at once.
Yet, if one or two become excited, the rest scatter, frenetically diving or spinning around until things calm down.
I wonder if they ever find out who started the commotion.
It is the same with human teenagers with their fads and music. Even university students become fanatical about inane situations. How do you think wars start? Sometimes saner heads prevail, but not often.
Watch that colourful undulating leech slowly cruising above the pebbles as it searches for prey. Once he and his cousin, the lamprey, latch on, there is no escape.
In my world they are called pimps, drug pushers, and bankers who suck everything out of people.
Nothing is left.
Nothing! Not even the will to live.
I can see some tiny fish fry skittering among the thin grass. If it weren't for those thin weeds gently swaying in one direction, you would never know there was a current here.
It is the same in the human world. Different types of subtle undercurrents pervade all societies. The people exist, struggle within it, mature and hopefully find their own way.
Many don't make it.
You might say that snail represents a persistent person who steadily -- resolutely -- makes his own course through life, constantly progressing along upon a path of his own creation. And, due to receiving several hard knocks all through life, he or she builds a shell around himself or herself to prevent -- with any luck - further injury.
It doesn't always work.
Consider how that erratic water strider, with its hairy feet allowing it scamper across the water without breaking the surface tension, uses its rapier mouth to pounce upon vulnerable creatures and suck them dry.
Did you know there are humans like that? They lurk about on the fringes of society, picking off their fellow beings, and draining them physically, financially, or worse spiritually dry?
Lawyers are a good example.
That scuttling crawfish is also looking for weak or injured creatures, just like the predators that lurk around bus stations, watching for the teenagers who are 'runaways'.
It is the same in the human world. If a person is fortunate enough to escape one menace, another more deadly one is lying in wait.
I should know.
Watch that leaf floating in this direction. In a way, it could represent a person's life adventure: spinning off small snags, becoming stuck briefly, but then moving on to an unknown destination.
But some leaves never get free.
Never!
No matter how they struggle, they are tossed around until they are completely used up; after which they are discarded, alone and empty upon the river of destiny.
Speaking of fate, I hope you don't think I'm impolite, but I am becoming very sleepy. I think I'll lay beck here and listen to the forest sounds and....