Floating

She couldn’t really swim, but she knew that if she lay back straight and breathed deeply she might be able to float. So she dipped her big toe into the wild waters of the web, jiggled it about and then jumped in. She went under at first, but when she spat out mouthfuls of sherbet water she soon found that it wasn’t as deep as she’d feared. So she went with the flow and let herself be washed ashore to a place where words played with each other.

They came from all sides and the strangest of places. Some were in code masquerading as numbers. Others spoke of giraffes and dragons, and also of love – love found, love lost, love in waiting, love wanting. Words jostled and danced in groups of 300, playing with line breaks and colons and dashes. The stories they sang touched all generations and flew off and about, touching new places: gut, heart, geography and mind. There was food there, too: chocolate and fish, cups of tea, coffee and wine, even magic mushrooms and smoking signs. Odd names would flit past, some even with faces. Others wore pictures coded in colours.

Words washed over her, shook and cajoled her; some started teaching her how to swim. Lift your arm, breathe deep, flap your feet, play like a dolphin, but mind the sharks and the obscure fish. Don’t worry about what’s going on at the homestead. Play with us now, come on now. Swim. So she stroked and flapped, but as she turned over, she heard a voice say: “Come home now, we need you.” She turned back and saw a big wave coming, so duty bound surfed back to the shore.

“Where’ve you been now?” asked her husband.
“Floating, just floating,” she said with a grin.