Surprised By Joy, Impatient As the Wind

The Meeting

Jack kept the water clean for the waving plants and murmuring fish.

The lake was spacious and deep, and, perhaps best of all, located in the middle of the woods where it would not be bothered but in passing. The summer months were by far the best of each year, when the water was cool, the leaves were the richest green, the wind kissed the earth like a child, and...and...

And, if Jack was lucky, he would have visitors.

Lovers and readers, tree-climbers and trekkers. Sometimes there were hunters, with spikes to take Jack's fish. But they were not as fearless as they made themselves seem, and he sent them off every time without trouble.

Perhaps that was where the stories began.

Jack became a local tale. The lake became a mystery. Wondering people came in search of things told to them by mischievous siblings, by parents wishing to spook their children, by friends in the night.

Humans were curious creatures.

The lake was big enough for Jack to peer at them from behind a rock, from across the water. Never up close. But, from what he could tell, they were merry, and looked quite a bit like Jack did. Humans had noses and fingers and eyes like Jack did, and skin and hair. He always wondered how the humans made their hair so neat, how the females designed theirs so intricately. Jack's was not near long enough to do so- it stuck up in a short, messy heap atop his head. Their clothing interested him as well, but not as much as...

Jack often heard them speak, as well. They spoke of many things that intrigued him. Books. Fire. Jackets. Human things.

Walking.

Jack didn't quite understand this. He had learned what fire was, and had found one of their books, left behind under a tree once. Books held stories, fire held heat, as did jackets. It was their way of locomotion that he wondered about most often. He hadn't the faintest idea what to call the things these humans walked on, or what they wore over them.

The more Jack observed the humans, the more he wanted to know of them. Unlike him, these creatures could not breathe underwater, and therefore could not survive in the lake as Jack could. Many of them, he heard, lived in houses, but only several lived in the bright castle visible above the trees, and none of those several ever ventured out to the lake. Jack gazed at it often, and wondered what it would be like to reside in such an abode. But he knew, however much he wished to approach one, that humans were finicky and loud, and quite superstitious.

And what would a human think of a creature born with the bottom half of a fish?

Jack kept to his quiet lake, and the soft breeze. He enjoyed the summer for what it was. This season was quiet. Spring was nearing its end, the leaves darkening in color and the flowers falling from the branches. Often they would fall into the lake, the water reflecting the blue sky. Jack enjoyed scooping them up and placing the delicate white flowers in his hair, or tucking one behind his ear.

Jack received his first visitor of the season on a perfect cloudless morning when the flowers floated along the water. He swam up from his little underwater home to behind a large rock and surfaced, green tail wiggling anxiously. He peered around.

A man was kneeling beside the water, head bowed, body sighing and drooping as a weeping willow would. His face was hidden, but his thick head of hair was as black as the nighttime sky. His clothing glittered in the sun's soft rays, and Jack marveled at it- he had never seen a human adorned with something so beautiful, or that the sun seemed to love so.

He stared for a long time, at war with himself. He had always wanted to see a human up close, had always wanted to speak with one. The inevitable question of why Jack refused to leave the water would pop up, though, and it was the reaction that truly made him hesitant.