Sunlight puddles down through the taller growth, casting bars of gold into the water where fish swim. You put your hand into the water to feel the fish. Your slim fingers look fat below the water, far larger than the flitting fish you seek to touch.

One fish has a golden sheen to their dark edged body. Their bulky middle swelling forth in shining golden silver, the rest smoked and tarnished, charcoaled grey with fantastic burgundy fins flowing out. Fins four times as big as the body from which they’ve grown. Edged in gold so the farthest reaches, the thinnest edges, of the fish match the chunky middle. Gilt edged, golden tinted silver and burgundy, the fish appears a glowing wealth of warmth, sliding through the cool waters.

The fish noses through a thick bit of water weeds, stopping in the middle, hidden between the stems. You sigh, stand upright, drop your pack and step into the water, slender toes becoming stubby sunken schooners tangled in weeds and mud as water laps your calves.

You crouch, bottoms of your seat bagging into the water, and wait. It is slow this creek, this backwater, the mud of your entrance settles before it washes away.

You breathe out, your crouch settles, water weeds tickle your sides where your shirt has lifted. Later as your pants and shirt dry you may regret this casual soaking, or perhaps you’ll revel in the rebellion. For now, the warm gold of a velvet fish distracts your attention.

Both hands extend, fingers floating midway between mud and air, you wait. Air is different here, this close to the surface of the water it smells of life and death, soil and rain. Far above leaves stir in the wind, here stillness reigns.

Bars of sunlight create backdrops of shadow exposing here a group of tiny silver fish playfully chaotic; there a still life of branch, sunken fruit and rock; here a grotto of water weeds where a bit of burgundy hides. Birds call out overhead and you wonder, do fish hear? What must it sound like in the water world of a backwater creek? Can the fish hear the thumping of land dwellers walking the edges? Bugs skittering across the surface? The call of fishing birds before they break water?

The bit of gold, charcoal and burgundy wriggles out of the weeds, fins flaring free, the fish poses, all fins stretching, filling the bit of clear water with richness. Across the surface a water bug skits. The fish collapses to a sleek arrow, flits away.

You wait.

Bars of sunlight shift, the scenes they illuminate slide to different vistas. The thin bladed water weeds fall into shadow, broad leaf plants drink up the light. Fingers float, elbows awash in water, knees trunking up from the feet ever so slowly sinking as mud silts over their tops. You rest your chin on your knees, wondering if someone were to lick your elbow underwater, would you feel it?

Exposed in a sliding bar of sunlight, amongst the dappled light of leaves, rests the gold and burgundy fish. Moving at the speed of water filtering through the plants your hand reaches toward the fish. Fingers rest on nearby leaves.

The fish shimmies their fins, drawing nearer. You notice the birds no longer calling. You hold your breath.

The fish flares all their fins, gill flaps extended, threatening your fingers. You droop the tips in submission. The fish swims victoriously over, fins trailing your knuckles.