School children rushed up the city street. The shu-shush of their corduroy pants woke the white paper birch trees from their dreams.
The children had come from an ocean as green and foamy as champagne. Their skin was translucent like the skin of a yellow plum blushing blue, and their eyes were brown but lit with amber like a house cat’s. Their mother had dressed them in heavy nappy fabric to protect them from the onslaught of lies. She was the daughter of Danu, the Water Goddess, the progenitor of all things wet and fluid. Though she hated to send her offspring onto this land of confusion and division, she knew it was their destiny to flow wherever the land was low, no matter how narrow the crevices.
The trees watched them ripple by and then they slept again. They dreamed that their bark might become the pages of a book filled with poems and great art. The trees woke wondering if such a fate would be a blessing or a curse. They were grateful to sink their toes deep into the soil, chasing the children of the river, the river who lived beneath the land, the river who loved and nourished them.
