You are walking down a trail that you walk all of the time between this place and that place and you are quite fixated on minding your own business when a artery branches off from the trail that you could have sworn had not business being there, or that had failed to exist before (whichever came first).
So you stop and have a Little Chat with yourself.
“I don’t recall there being a Mysterious Trail leading away from this much Bigger Trail before in this particular spot, do you?” you ask the air.
“I am quite certain there was not a Mysterious Trail leading off from this one. I would have noticed if there had been,” you reply.
And, being the Observant Type of person that you are, you nod in agreement with yourself — surely you would have noticed a Mysterious Trail before now, had it existed.
Also being the Adventuresome Sort (oh do be an Adventuresome Sort for today — you might like it), you decide to see where the Mysterious Trail takes you.
The Mysterious Trail narrows and closes in on you until you are not quite sure if the Mysterious Trail still exists and you are just about ready to return to the Bigger Trail when you find yourself stepping into a Forest Clearing.
In the center of the Forest Clearing is an Ancient Well — or it looks rather Ancient anyway, though you admit you’ve put off getting new glasses for longer than recommended and it might just be the Ancient Glasses and not the Well having that Ancient effect.
“Well. That’s not at all what I would have expected,” you say to yourself.
Before you can reply, a Something sitting at the Well responds instead.
What is the Something at the potentially Ancient Well and what is their response that interrupts you from answering yourself?
Tell me in the comments.
15 responses to “Half-Penny Thoughts — 05aug26”
What did you expect? Chopped Liver?
Tinned Herring. With crackers. 🐟
First, I love this! The line “oh do be an Adventuresome Sort for today — you might like it” made me smile so big. And, well, here’s my silly response:
What’s sitting on that ancient well, for it’s not just you needing glasses but it’s actually far older and wiser than you can imagine, is a stone. Not a small one, no pebble you can fit in your pocket or flat thing you can skip in the water. No, this is a stone large enough that if it were to tip backwards would cover the well entirely, and if it were to tip forwards would crush your foot.
“What say you?” The stone repeats for what you are sure is the tenth time, although you are quite uneasy and it could have been only once. Or maybe twice.
How do you answer a stone? Does it want answers about what you are doing in the woods? Is it demanding you pay for some crime of humanity? Or is it simply curious about your day?
Do you say “I’m just taking a walk” or would it scoff at such an answer. You want to say something clever or meaningful. Perhaps it will grant you a wish or maybe even take away that pain you’ve been carrying with you all these years. You shuffle around the well thinking until you notice the moon has risen and the well has disappeared and instead you are standing before the trailhead once again.
“You okay?” A woman asks carrying a basket of stones. No, you think. Don’t take the babies from their mother. Before you can think, you’ve snatched her wicker basket and, holding it close to your chest so they don’t fall out, you run back into the woods.
Excellent! LMAO.
Wait.
That is totally something I might try to do. In fact, I might have a restraining order as a result. But baby rocks are back in the next with their mum.
Hahaha! Glad you liked it, but I’m afraid I do occasionally smuggle a rock or two home in my pocket. Poor rock babies. At least they get places of honor on my windowsills.
And a view they are unlikely to get with mum.
Clearly yourself who responds with, ‘Well, you took your time…’.
And then I respond to myself once again, telling myself it is almost time for tea and biscuits back at the home and there it is I hobble back towards.
But now he is out of the box. He knows the route away from the well and, when you sit at your table, you find him there, facing you, with a mug of black, strong coffee and a chocolate hobnob.
LOL. I hope he brought the chocolate hobnob. Fresh out, I’m afraid. Plenty of coffee though, and I’m happy to breed up another fresh if we run out.
Off the cuff, My Soul and “you forgot me.”
Hmm 🤔
It makes one wonder what’s inside the cuff.
Thanks Ted!
“You’ve been here before.”
All I’m saying is to watch out for frogs looking to be kissed when you hear something like that. 😂
Haha! Good one! Yep, definitely have to keep that in mind.