Imaginings

At the end of the field was a babbling brook, a peaceful stream filled with stepping stones which were covered by green moss. Squirrels played in the trees above us as I sat attempting to skip stones across the brook.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, with her feet dangling and playfully kicking in the edge of the water.

“Peaceful,” I commented. “Why can’t everything, everywhere, be so peaceful?”

“Gregory,” she screamed, “My foot, something’s got my foot!”

I grabbed her hand just as a tremendous force took both her and me underwater. The water sprayed upward, then downward, and we were half underwater and half underground, surrounded by a bubble, neither of us wet, both breathing air, and able to view the waters around us.

“What’s going on?” I was half panicked and out of breath.

“You asked a question; I thought I’d jolt your peace.”

“This is what you’re wanting the whole world to be like?” she asked.

I turned to see a beaver killing a fish, a water moccasin chasing it’s prey, larger fish eating smaller ones, and suddenly I realized that in the midst of the peace there was turmoil. Our bubble floated upward and I reminded myself to be more careful about the questions I asked.

“Are you saying there is no peace?”

“Actually, there was still peace. The beaver did not hate the fish; it merely needed it to survive. Gregory, peace is not a babbling brook outside of you. Close your eyes,” she instructed. I did so wondering what would materialize next.

“Imagine the brook, a calm breeze, not a worry in your world, calmness complete. Now Gregory, that is peace and it is a whole world’s peace...your world, the one of your imaginings. Everything you think can be touched by it.”

“My world. And if everyone were at peace?”

“Not everyone gets pulled into a babbling brook, Gregory,” she said, picking up her shoes and walking back toward the planes