Gurgle, pop and babble and growl.
The noises the little stream gave off were happy as the sun in the high sky, a baby river enjoying its childhood and dreaming of the day it would carry ships or carve out mountains at a whim.
Lying there, across a little turf island, bare feet dangling down into the cooling flow, the adventurer could already see the potential in the little water: high up in the distant peaks, from his reclined pose peeking down under the rim of his cap, were the gatherings of grey and deep black clouds. Large flashes that gave imaginary crackles in the mind's ear demonstrated a storm's power, the sheer mass of rubbing water that would be shedding in great flurries across those barren heights right now. Soon, maybe in a few hours, this pleasant little meadow with wildflowers would be a raging torrent, the little stream grown so quick to a teenage watercourse, the whole surrounding area drawn into its growing pains as it broke through banks several sizes too small to hold its new figure.
The adventurer breathed deep from the fragrant air of the warm summer detecting the hit of fresh clear air racing down the mountain ahead of the storm front and knew that it was time to strike the little campsite or watch it be swept away.
It would take time to return the spot to its former glory and a few hours more to reach a location that would escape any potential flooding. Even here, hundreds of meters above the flood plain could become awash with water when the downpour was heavy enough, the itinerant deluge retained as it negotiated some bottleneck downstream or sometimes becoming channelled into a large and unexpected new river that scoured the land.
The adventurer sighed. The lithe frame pulled itself up off the restful tuffet and shouldered a large hoe-axe, dropping great clods of marsh earth from the blade, recently used to join the baby steam up to a larger friend sat on the other side of the crude hessian tent, the mud from the trench dumped carefully to narrow the wide river, a few stones piled on its bed like an underwater cairn to further constrict the channel. Then the adventurer was away, camp packed and heading towards a low hill with a copse of trees on it, a fine place to wait out the oncoming storm.
About three hours later, mountain runoff doubled the size of the river, though now a good deal went to the baby stream so it did indeed grow and swell into a great brook. And performed great service as she took the water straight to the sea rather than to the town her big sister visited on her route, for which all the townspeople rightly glad when the flood only came up to their ankles. For not this time did they lose their homes or lives, thanks to the little stream.
Written for the Sailsbury Literature Fest 2019. Less than 500 words.
