There is a big puddle that has gathered in the street in front of our house. There are several reasons the puddle is there, but we pretend that the puddle is caused by the rain, since when it rains the puddle gets bigger, deeper, and muddier. Yet the puddle does not go away when the rain stops.
The pipe from our house to the sewer leaks a bit. We never fix it. There is a depression in the street that is the puddle's home. We refuse to pay taxes to repair the street. Our vehicles get dirty when we drive through the puddle; when I wash my Chevy Suburban, or my wife's Ford Explorer, the runoff collects in the puddle. I am often too lazy to turn off the hose and it adds to the puddle as well. One of our trucks leaks a little oil and that gives the puddle a glimmering sheen.
I am determined to be done with this puddle. I put on my big boots, and walk outside. I stand looking at this puddle that I helped make, but I blame the rain, or the street, or my neighbors, or the city. I lift my foot and bring it down hard, dead square in the middle of the puddle.
Time slows down. I smash my other foot down in the puddle. I jump up and come down with all my force. Muddy water splashes on the yellow ribbon magnet on my parked truck and on nearby squirrels and on a mother with her baby in a stroller.
And for a moment there is no puddle around my feet.
I notice that some ants had been stranded on a leaf floating in the puddle. The waves caused by my boots wash the leaf to the edge of the puddle and it seems as though the ants are saved. The next wave drowns them all.
Soon the water rolls back into the depression that held the puddle, and I am ankle deep in brown, thick water again. I find that one of my boots leaks. A car is coming and I jump out of the way. Someone in my house flushes the toilet.
It looks like rain.