Well, I've had a couple days to mull over the interview with Wendy the Weaver and I saved my prompt writing from last night to do this morning as a warm up, so as soon as I get this posted, I'm jumping off the cliff and writing this thing. I just realized that I don't know how many words they'll take so first I'll check their website and if that doesn't tell me, I'll stick with the limit I had before--1200 words. That's a nice round number and not too unattainable in this amount of time. I have an appointment with Ram Rojas the muralist on Friday and this whole thing starts again because I need that one to go to the Peninsula Pulse by the following Thursday. As I told Durwood yesterday, this feels like real grownup stuff and I'm not at all sure I like it. Oh well, I guess I've gotta grow up sometime, might as well be in celebration of my 59th birthday a week from tomorrow. Eek.
August 23--Fakarava Atoll, Tahiti. As she swam over the top of the reef and back toward the shore Nan thought of how the reef fish looked like bits of rainbows flitting over the coral patches. So many creatures use the small bits of coral scattered over the white sand as nurseries. The shallows are a great place to do your required three-minute safety stop and Nan liked to hover nearly motionless if she could manage it by just flicking her fins a tiny bit to stay in place. She loved the gentle rocking of the surge and the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the clear water. In one stand of Staghorn coral no bigger than a laundry basket she saw three baby eels--two Spotted Morays with dark spots on their light bodies and one Goldentail all cocoa brown dusted with tiny gold spots almost like freckles, each one of them a perfect miniature. There were juvenile Blue-spotted Damselfishes no bigger than postage stamps all dark navy, almost black, with one iridescent blue spot where the tail joins the body. On one dive earlier in the day she saw a tiny round black fish no bigger than a pea, covered in yellow dots with its near-transparent fins furiously flapping to keep it in place. It was a Smooth Trunkfish baby bobbing in the shelter of a bit of fire coral. Nan stayed there enchanted by the tiny thing, waving a hand to attract her dive buddy's attention but never taking her eyes off it for fear she'd never find it again. Just as her buddy swam up a Bar Jack, a hunter the size of her sandal, darted in front of her and ate the tiny thing in one gulp. Tears sprang to her eyes. She had always liked the smooth dull silver and dark blue stripe of the Bar Jacks in the past but seeing that one totally natural act she decided that they had a mean look about them and hoped they'd be on the menu at the resort that night, that one in particular.
...GO! But first I'm going to brush my teeth. Stupid banana.
--Barbara
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