Ool at Night

So here's another segment from the WIP creature book. Thank you for reading.

“Ool, are you awake?”

“I think so. Do they always talk inside your wardrobes at night?”

“Yes. Always”

“Then I am awake.’

“You scared?”

“It’s been a month, hasn’t it?”

“We were scared a lot, once. It was not nice. I want to do nice things for you? Water?”

“Thanks, I drank so much coffee, I don’t know what I am anymore.”

“Try it, it’s good for when you are really scared. The taste is a bit rubbish otherwise.”

Ool looked into the tin cup. The water smelled of the lake. In his hand, the water moved a bit, like the lake going in and out of the sand on the shore. It was very dark in her room, so he couldn’t see him, but he knew a reflected Ool was staring at him. He has not changed his ways. He has not found out what was expected of him, and the consequences, would be bad. The reflected Ool shook in the dark. He took a sip, and it was like diving in.

Fresh water sea-weed, fresh-water fish, uncurious and busy, with quiet moves. Ool also swam slowly, with quiet inobtrusive moves. He could see the bottom as a dark sky heading towards him. Silt, and rotten leaves below, infinite years of rotten leaves, of treacherous sand, small rocks. “I am glad I am here”, he said, and the words escaped in gentle bubbles, making it easier for him to go deeper. “Is there anyone here to teach me?” he asked. He thought he saw shapes underneath. He thought he felt someone in the water, or was it someone very big looking at him from above. He kept swimming. “ I am afraid,” he said, to make more bubbles, and then, “I was afraid, just now, and I am none the wiser”.  And he felt his own gentleness – a small person, with a small tail, once a giant, once a story-teller, now just a small part of the lake travelling into itself. “I have nothing to tell them, he told the silt floor, the quiet fish, the waving fronds. They will question me tomorrow, and I have nothing. They will blow me into smithereens, they will end me, they will make the world around me into ash”. Smaller bubbles came out, and again he felt someone wise looking at him from above. Ool turned on his back, floated upwards towards the kind eyes, the deep wisdom, the sure knowledge that there was nothing to fear, and merged at the rim of the cup, the edge of the lake, with his non-reflected self.

“Thank you”

“Told you, it’s good water”