Pointedly awkward silence
Again
How did we…?
Funny story. So yesterday I had a craving for a croissant. Don’t know why. Maybe Paris flashbacks. Anyway, I decided to walk down to Moore’s bakery cause I figured if I was going to eat a croissant I probably needed to get some exercise beforehand to start working it off. You know where the stream runs along the side of the road and then veers off right around Wallace and there’s that little foot bridge? There were two kids on the bridge, probably eight or nine and they were playing Pooh sticks, you know where you drop a stick on one side of the bridge and then run to the other side and see if the stream brings it back to you. I used to play that with my little brother. So I stood at the end of the bridge and watched for a bit. The kids ceremoniously dropped their sticks and ran to the other side and waited. But only one stick came out. The blond kid’s. The little brown haired boy’s stick never came out. I guess the stream ate it. I don’t know. I left. I had a bakery to get to.
What are we…?
The funny thing is, the bakery closes in the afternoon. I never knew that. Did you? Well, lesson learned. So I was croissant-less and that was the whole purpose of going so I didn’t want to go get an ice cream or anything else so I just turned back around to come home.
Why are you…?
Just wait. When I got back to that little bridge the boys were still there. I don’t think they are brothers, you know blond and brown hair. Though they did kind of look alike with a mom-who-shops-for-both-at-the-same-time kind of thing. They weren’t playing Pooh sticks anymore. The each had a pile of rocks by their feet and they were taking turns, one at a time, and dropping them in the water.
What does this…?
I was a little hungry and frankly a bit tired of the walking and also a little curious so I went over to the boys and asked them what they were doing. And the blond boy, I think the older of the two, at least the more confident, said they were aiming for the fish. I said, aiming for the fish? And he said, yea, but the big rocks make too big a splash so you can never see if you hit them. But the little rocks kind of go sideways when they hit the water so you have to aim a little beyond the fish.
They go sideways?
Yea, kind of skimming through the water, sharp edges first. I thought it was cool that a kid so young could figure out you had to aim away from the fish to hit it. Smart kid. So I watched for a while. Pick the perfect rock, aim for one of the little fish, aim a little upstream, and then throw with their little boy arms.
You stayed and watched?
Yea. And then the younger one, the brown haired kid, squealed. He said he hit one. They got real excited and I kind of did, too. So we ran to the other side of the bridge to see what happened to the fish.
And?
I don’t know. It turns out a fish swimming downstream and a fish floating downstream because it’s dead actually look the same. Funny story.
Pointedly awkward silence
Again
