I was just sitting there, minding my own business. Rays of sun hot light beat down on me, warming me up. I could feel myself shimmering as the sun light got caught in the droplets of river water. I loved shimmering because well, the truth is that when I shimmered, I was doing something. Can you believe that? Shimmering was the only action in my dull life. Every day I did the same thing. Every day I sat in the same spot. Every day I watched the fish swish by. Every day the water trickled and babbled around me. Every day I just sat in my bed watching my life swim by. Every day I slept in my bed and dreamed of being part of something other than this stone cold life.

      So that day, like I said, I was there, minding my own business, listening to the water babble because it doesn’t ever shut up, when I heard some other babbling coming closer and closer. I tried to roll to the edge of the water to hear better.

     “I’m starving,” said a deep voice. “We have to figure out how to get food,” the voice said. “That last village didn’t want to give, or share anything with us. We are clever men. We can figure something out.”

      Then I heard a second deeper voice. “What can we do? We’ve been walking from village to village and they are all as poor as we are.” He sighed. “I’m going to sit right here and rest. Maybe we can come up with something. For now, this water will have to fill us up. Maybe we can catch a fish.”

     The two voices stopped. I heard some splashing and some slurping. Ugh, that was gross. They were spreading their germs and taking a drink of water from my home. Those thieves! Who did they think they were? I rolled a little closer hoping to roll right over their hands when I looked up. Uh-oh. I stood stone still.

     I stared at him.

     He stared at me.

     I stared at him.

     He stared at me.

     I tried to get a stone’s throw away. Too late!

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