A Wonderful Feeling

Noah was back on his boat.

“I don’t want to write in my diary,” he said to the waves. “And I don’t want any company. My company all goes away, anyway.”

The first thing he did, he went over to the tree he had renamed Forever. Bustah Moove had called it the Tree at the End of Time. But Bustah - a very high Bustah - had misunderstood. He had thought it meant that the line between life and death had been eliminated. But the ocean had other ideas. And after he jumped in and Noah fished him out, and after hypothermia had nearly killed him, Mr. Moove had had other ideas too. One of which was not to move to the village and be friends with Noah after all. Too much bad publicity. Even for a rapper.

Noah wanted to talk, even though there was no one to listen. He wanted to talk, because he felt like if he did, somehow he’d be heard.

After Forever, he went on a sightseeing tour. Because he knew that what he saw had ears. Somehow.

He said to a granite cliff, in which he saw the images of fish, of a big fish wolfing down a smaller fish, “Hello, mirror. That’s how it is, isn’t it? For fish and humans too.”

The perception seemed liberating rather than saddening. The cliffs themselves, weathered and darkened with mineral stains and topped with a noble toupee of maroon undergrowth, were either beautiful or beyond beautiful. The sky above was tinted with the late spring snowfall on its way.

“Thank you for a lovely date,” he said. “Now I’d better head home.”

He blew a kiss at the sky and turned the boat around.

He was all talked out. It felt wonderful.

26 March 2026
Texas Jim
Rogues Roost, Nova Scotia