Drip - The Forest
2025-06-10 Small author's note here. This bit of the collection isn't finished. It ends where it did for the original writing challenge but I am expanding on it and will eventually add to it here. This is TECHNICALLY against the spirit of the challenge. But I loved the jokes in this tale too much to never finish it.
2026-02-24 Author's Note: I've finished this story with the addendum I'd originally written for it. It ties it more into a larger narrative of sorts. I've not got a PLAN or anything. But it lends itself to the sort of story that seems to be emerging from these prompts. The new content begins at the line after our protagonist's small swim.
Drip
One might think that in a world covered in a thick canopy, where there is not light save for what little light can be filtered through the ever shifting leaves above. That a rainstorm would be of little consequence. Trees, after all, grow in such a way as to draw rainfall towards their trunk. So naturally one might expect to be able to remain, relatively, dry in some spots and less so in others. In the forest that is not the case.
So here our protagonist sits huddled in the crook of an old Oak's roots. While the rain pouring from the heavens above seemingly ignoring every leaf on the way down. His only saving grace from the baseball sized droplets of water that seemed to strike the ground with terminal velocity was the laminated piece of parchment he held over his head. He shivered and sneezed in a way that made the tree behind him shudder, sending about 8 more softball sized drops onto his map hat.
He sighed, picked himself up out of the mud, and began walking down the path again. If he was going to get completely soaked no matter where he stood or sat then there was no sense in sitting around and waiting for something hungry and equally miserable to come along and find him.
After taking about two and a half steps back onto the path our protagonist came to the not particularly shocking realization that each new step on the muddy road put his leg about 2 inches deeper into the mud. He paused. Looked down at his legs. Finished his third step and watched his knee come level with the ground. To his credit our protagonist did not panic! (I knew I chose well with this one) He very calmly and coolly rolled his parchment up and stuck it into his pocket. He took a deep, breath to center himself. And just as he was getting himself under control (Kudos to him for not screaming again) he heard a strange noise added to the rhythmic bludgeoning of the rain.
He strained to listen because something deep deep in his brain. Down to the primordial space where the lizard meets the monkey... a red flag of warning was raised alongside a solemn hiss and a panicked OOK. The sound, as it turned out, was the sound of rushing water. A lot of it. He twisted his body, as best he could given his present predicament, until he was facing the direction of the sound and in doing so he was now submerged waist deep in the mud. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end but he chuckled. He chuckled because what he saw was so outlandish that his brain didn't fully believe it was in his reality until he felt the breeze rushing past him from that direction.
He screamed (Can't win'em all) and frantically leapt away from the source of the noise, to his credit he obtained an impressive amount of both vertical and horizontal movement for someone half buried in mud. He began scrambling on his belly trying, desperately, to get to a patch of solid ground so he could start running instead of crawling. He did not, in fact, find that patch of solid ground before the wall of rushing water caught up to him and enveloped him. Though to his credit he made it a whole 4 feet before it did.
The next 10 minutes of our protagonist's life can be summarized as a series of single word statements as that is most similar to how he experienced this span of time. I will give them to you now so that we aren't here all day (ehem): Tree - Rock - Tree - Tree - Ground - Rock - Air - Water - Tree - Rock - Ground - Ground - Air - Water - Air - Water - Air - Tree - Safety? - Water - Tree - Rock - Rock - Rock - Rock - Dejavu? - Rock - Tree - Air - Water - Tree - Tree - Racoon - Rock - Ground - Tree - Boat - Hand - Air.
The Old Floater was, as it's name suggests, old yet capable of floating. But the latter claim to fame was the equivalent of calling the Hindenburg "The Flyer". Yes technically it was true, but something deep in your bones told you that wouldn't be the case for long. On top of that The Old Floater resembled a luxury vessel about as much as a codfish might resemble a 2014 Honda Accord. That is to say nowhere in any language or system of classification could or should the two things be associated in any capacity.
The deck of the Old Floater, where our sopping wet protagonist now found himself, was the picture of functional dilapidation. Not a single piece of equipment from the captain's helm to the old crusty anchor didn't have some sort of patchwork job with a patchwork job patchworked over the original patchwork. It also seemed that this ship had lived every walk of life a ship might be capable of living. Strewn about the deck you had your standard ship fare of ropes, anchor, fishing nets, crab cages, harpoons, and spare ship parts. But amongst the expected were the unexpected; A pile of lumber axes, wheels from carts, some busted deep fryers, a sign reading "Crazy Cremy's Fishfry and Casino Cruise", and in the center of the deck a statue seemingly carved from some dark polished wood.
The statue was beautiful, depicting a woman who for all intents and purposes must have been the model for the dictionary definition of disgruntled fisherman er... fisherwoman. As she wore standard salty sea dog attire. And the scowl the artist had chosen to place upon her face made our protagonist feel like he was a schoolboy who'd been caught with some form of contraband by the principle herself.
Our protagonist did, in fact, scream again when the statue began talking to him. As it turns out the ominous statue planted to the deck was actually the Old Floater's captain. Who seemed to be in a rather foul mood. Probably. Or do ship captains just look like that?
"What kind'a idjit comes a wollopin' up against someone's ship witout askin'. Don't y'know it's bad manners ta touch someone's ship like that?? Ya could damage someting! Why if I had half a mind I'd hav left ya to swim with the critters and logs in that flood. But me Ma always told me to lend a hand fer those in need. Yer lucky me 'n the ol floater just happened to be passing trough. What were yah doin' out there to begin wit? Foolish of yah ta not bring a boat out when rain is expected. Why when I was yer age..." Our protagonist soggy, sad, barely conscious from the many MANY collisions he experienced in the past few minutes, and now being dressed down by a random ship's captain in the middle of a forest did the only thing he was truly capable of at this point... which is to say he passed out in a soggy pitiful puddle there on the deck of The Old Floater.