Cloudless skies

"Tell me about your madness, and I might take you seriously. I leave the rest to the wind."

"What are you talking about?" I shouted.

Casey sprinted up the steep hill, blades of wet grass sticking to the bottoms of his tennis shoes.

"Casey, where are you going?"

No response of course. Sighing, I hurried after him. The sun smiled above after a light spring shower, the sky now perfect, cloudless, the air fresh. Casey plopped down abruptly on the wet grass and looked up.

"Some people think cloudless skies are perfect," he mused.

Was I just thinking that? I tried to hide my heavy breathing as I crouched down beside him, not wanting to soak my jeans. I waited.

Finally he offered, "Do you see that glimmering down there?"

"Yes," I shrugged, "That's the sun reflecting off the resevoir."

"This all used to be beaver's land," he responded. "Beaver builds resevoirs too-- really complicated systems, actually. They pile sticks somewhere along a river and stack the wood higher and higher as the waters rise. They even install pressure controls in their dam-- sticks they can pull out to relieve water pressure if it builds up too much."

"Wow, that's pretty cool," I nodded. "I wonder if we could hire beavers to make our dams for us? They'd probably be much more successful..."

Casey didn't laugh but started log-rolling down the hill from where we had just come. I hesitated, thinking about how wet my clothes would get, the possibility of grass stains, that damp clothes-sticking-to-your-skin feeling on our walk home... But Casey had reached the bottom and flailed his limbs open wide so he resembled a starfish and his giggling soon turned to joyous laughter. So I gave in and hurled down the hill after him.