In Quite the Pickle


After that day I only stayed up long enough to deliver my common refrain, "You're annoying. Don't come back."

The farmer girl's shoulders always drooped when I would surface with only those words. Her big eyes seemed more anxious than usual. I could not relax and the fish were suffering for it. They swarmed me whenever they could to support me and get me to fresh waters, for themselves and for me. But to no avail.

She was noticing how the lake was changing and told me in the snatches between my reply to her gift and disappearing once more that she had been doing more research. She could not find the answer.

And then, a day passed with no cucumber. And another. And another.

I could almost taste bitter salt in the water, and I began panicking. What was happening to my lake? What was happening to me?