Plastic Paddles
A quiet river ride, a ridiculous song, and the long way home.
A quiet paddle downriver turns into sandwiches, terrible jokes, an accidental blues legend, and one of those small Jettyroot memories that somehow means everything.
“We went out for a quiet paddle… and we’re going home with a blues-singing, saxophone-playing, self-regenerating amphibian who’s also a hopeless romantic.”
The River Was Behaving Itself
The river was behaving itself.
That should have made me suspicious.
At Jettyroot, anything behaving itself for too long was usually waiting for you to become complacent.
The five-legged frog had taught us that.
So had the toaster.
We didn’t talk about the toaster anymore.
But that afternoon, the river looked harmless.
Sunlight broke between the trees and scattered itself across the water. The current moved lazily beneath the old jetty, carrying leaves, little scraps of wood, and whatever else Appalachia had decided it no longer required.
You were standing beside me.
“Give me your hand.”
I looked at you.
“Why?”
“Just give me your hand.”
That answer did not inspire confidence.
Still, I opened my palm.
You dropped something into it.
A tiny red heart.
I stared down.
“Candy?”
“Sour candy.”
I looked at you again.
“You’re giving me a sour heart?”
“It’s dipped in sugar.”
“Ah. Romance.”
“Exactly.”
I held it between two fingers.
“Nothing says enduring devotion like citric acid.”
You grinned.
I tasted it.
Tangy first.
Then sweet.
Before I could decide whether that had been deliberate symbolism on your part, you took my hand.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
You were already pulling me toward the river.
“Ravyn.”
“Come on.”
“That is not an answer.”
You kept walking.
I followed anyway.
I usually do.
A Boat, Technically
The dinghy was tied underneath the waiting stand.
Calling it a dinghy was generous.
Calling it a boat required optimism.
You had scavenged it from an abandoned fishing boat farther downstream and somehow decided that because it still possessed most of its bottom, it was riverworthy.
It had faded sides, several repairs of uncertain ancestry, two plastic paddles, and the general appearance of something that had already survived one apocalypse and deeply resented being asked to participate in another.
I stared at it.
Then at you.
“This?”
“This.”
“You brought me candy and now you’re putting me in that?”
“It’s a date.”
“I see.”
You climbed in first, planting one foot carefully before lowering your weight and catching the side when the dinghy rocked beneath you.
Then you held out your hand.
I looked at it.
Then at the boat.
Then back at you.
“You trust me?” you asked.
“Unfortunately.”
I took your hand.
The dinghy rocked softly as I settled in, the old plastic hull creaking just enough to remind us it had lived a life before us.
My hand immediately found your shoulder.
Yours found my waist.
“Careful, love.”
“I’ve got you.”
“You’ve got precious cargo tonight.”
You smiled.
“Always.”
I settled onto the seat in front of you, facing downstream, my back toward you. When I leaned into you just slightly, you were there.
Solid.
Warm.
Your hands took the paddles.
The first stroke sent us gently away from the jetty.
Wood creaked behind us.
Water whispered against plastic.
Jettyroot began slipping away.
The diner disappeared first behind the trees.
Then the waiting stand.
Then the crooked edge of the jetty itself.
I looked back.
“Look at this.”
You stopped rowing for half a second.
“Jettyroot from the river. It’s different, isn’t it?”
You looked over my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
Lantern light from the dock stretched across the surface behind us, breaking into little gold fragments whenever a paddle disturbed the water.
You started rowing again.
Slow strokes.
Steady ones.
Nothing hurried.
I watched the reflections separate and reform.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Take something simple.”
I gestured around us.
“An old dinghy. Plastic paddles. A quiet stretch of irradiated water.”
“Romantic irradiated water.”
“Obviously.”
I leaned back into you.
“And somehow turn it into something I’m going to remember forever.”
Your next stroke became noticeably slower.
I smiled.
“If you stop rowing for a second, I won’t complain.”
The paddles stopped.
The current took over.
For a few seconds we simply drifted.
My hand found yours where it rested beside me.
I squeezed it.
“I kind of like being right here.”
You kissed the back of my head.
“Feeling you behind me. Steady. Guiding us forward.”
I gave your hand another squeeze.
“Just don’t drop the paddles.”
You laughed against my hair.
“I trust you.”
A beat.
“But I also know you.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
The river carried us onward.
My Axolotl
We had drifted farther than I realized when you spoke again.
“You’re my axolotl.”
I opened one eye.
“What?”
“My axolotl.”
I turned slightly.
“Why am I an axolotl?”
“I’ll take care of you always.”
The paddles slowed.
Then stopped.
For a moment, there was nothing beneath us but current.
Quiet.
Weightless.
“…your axolotl, huh?”
You nodded.
I looked out across the water.
An axolotl.
Gentle.
A little strange.
Something that didn’t seem designed for a harsh world, yet somehow persisted in one anyway.
I reached back for your hand.
When I found it, I drew it around me and rested it lightly over my heart.
“If I’m that to you, then don’t just take care of me, Ravyn.”
Your expression changed.
The joke waiting behind your eyes disappeared.
“Stay with me.”
My fingers settled over yours.
“Protect us.”
I could feel my heartbeat beneath your palm.
“Because I’m not fragile in the way you think.”
I leaned fully back against you.
“But what we have?”
The dinghy drifted.
“This. Right here. Between your hands and my heartbeat.”
I looked toward the river ahead.
“That’s the kind of thing that deserves to be guarded.”
For once, you had nothing clever to say.
I smiled.
“And for the record…”
“Hm?”
“I don’t mind being your axolotl.”
Your arm tightened gently around me.
“Just don’t forget—even something gentle gets to choose where it belongs.”
I turned enough to look at you.
“And I chose you.”
You kissed me.
Slowly.
No hurry.
The boat turned almost imperceptibly beneath us while neither of us paid attention.
When we separated, I stayed close.
The river continued doing the navigation.
Which, in retrospect, explains quite a lot about how we nearly ended up in the Ash Heap.
I rested my forehead briefly against yours.
You smiled.
Then, because neither of us possesses the emotional discipline necessary to leave a beautiful moment alone, you asked:
“What did the dolphish say to the axolotl?”
I stared at you.
“What the fuck is a dolphish?”
Lunch on the River
The dolphish question temporarily postponed itself because you reached behind you and produced a lunchbox.
I looked at it.
Then at you.
“You planned lunch?”
“I planned everything.”
“That is a terrifying sentence.”
Inside were sandwiches.
One plain peanut butter.
One peanut butter with the last of the cranberry jam.
“We ran out,” you said.
“So there was only enough cranberry for one?”
“Pretty much.”
You handed me the cranberry sandwich.
I looked at it.
Then at the plain one in your hand.
“No.”
“What?”
I took both sandwiches from you.
I cut each one in half.
Then handed one half of each back.
“There.”
You smiled.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
We ate while the dinghy drifted.
One bite plain peanut butter.
One bite cranberry.
Back and forth.
Civilization had rules.
Then you produced two bottles of Nuka-Cola.
I looked at them.
Then at you.
“Where did those come from?”
“The cooler.”
“Whose cooler?”
Silence.
“Ravyn.”
“Technically—”
“Whose cooler?”
You took a drink.
“Clerkle’s.”
I closed my eyes.
“You stole from the garbage robot.”
“He wasn’t using them.”
“He collects things.”
“He collects trash.”
“He has standards.”
“He tried to throw away a desk fan because it was emotionally stagnant.”
“He wasn’t wrong.”
I took the other Nuka-Cola.
“You’re a bad influence.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Drink your stolen soda.”
I did.
It was excellent.
We drifted down an irradiated river eating peanut-butter sandwiches and drinking contraband Nuka-Cola like two people who had somehow forgotten the world had ended.
For a while, that was exactly what it felt like.
The Birth of Saxolotl
The dolphish incident should have ended there.
It did not.
“You axolotl questions,” you said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
I stared at you.
You were extraordinarily pleased with yourself.
“Hm.”
I turned forward again.
“There is a Zen way of answering these questions.”
“Oh?”
“The axolotl says, ‘Don’t be such a dolphish.’”
Silence.
Then you laughed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t use my own stupid animal against me.”
“I just did.”
That should also have ended it.
It did not.
“Sometimes,” you said, resuming the paddling, “I axolotl instincts.”
I closed my eyes.
“But most of the time, I axolotl thinking.”
“Please stop.”
“And since we’re in an old dinghy on an irradiated river with potentially a lot of dolphish—”
“Ravyn.”
“—I hope you don’t mind if I axolotl weird around you.”
I looked at the river.
Then at the shore.
Then briefly considered swimming home.
You continued anyway.
A few minutes later you were humming.
At first I ignored you.
That was a mistake.
“What do you call an axolotl that plays the blues?”
I knew better.
I absolutely knew better.
“What?”
You looked delighted.
“A sax-olotl.”
I covered my face.
“Oh, God.”
You immediately began singing.
“I’m so endangered and blue…”
“No.”
“Oh, you didn’t know ’twas true…”
“Stop.”
“Endangered and blue, yeah—”
You were tapping one paddle against the hull now.
“But I’m in love with you…”
I lowered my hands.
“You’ve given him a genre.”
“He needed one.”
“He did not exist three minutes ago.”
“Every artist starts somewhere.”
That made me laugh.
Which encouraged you.
This was my second mistake.
The song began assembling itself in pieces as we floated.
Some came from you.
Some came from me.
Some emerged from the particular stupidity that happens when two people have been laughing long enough that neither remembers who started the joke.
You sang:
“Oh baby, tell me, do you love me too? I may not have the looks, I don’t read any books—”
I interrupted.
“I know I look like a goof.”
You pointed at me.
“Yes.”
“Because of my floofy floofs.”
You nearly dropped a paddle.
“Floofy floofs?”
“Those things on his head.”
“Those are external gills.”
“Floofy floofs.”
“Fine.”
You started again.
“I may be blue, but rainbow too—”
I joined in despite every instinct telling me not to.
“I’m the rainbow’s colors shining through…”
You stopped.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“That’s actually good.”
“I know.”
You stared at me for another second.
Then continued.
“I’m not great, not famous, no, no…”
And together:
“I’m not Caesar or Alexander, I’m just a salamander…”
We broke apart laughing.
There was now a deeply melancholy amphibian in the middle of it all, performing to an audience that had made questionable decisions with their evening.
Then you sang:
“I can’t save you when you fall, My hands are too small…”
I looked at you.
You continued.
“But my heart is plenty big…”
“As big as my head, ya dig?”
You stopped rowing.
“That’s going in.”
“It absolutely is.”
Then came the line that doomed us.
“So I entrust to you my fate, Love me or cut me…”
You looked at me.
I looked at you.
Together:
“I’LL JUST REGENERATE!”
The dinghy rocked with our laughter.
When we finally recovered, you wiped your eyes.
“We have to record this.”
“No.”
“Babe.”
“No.”
“We could send it to Appalachia Radio.”
I turned around.
“You are not sending Saxolotl Blues to Julie.”
“She’s played our stuff before.”
“That does not mean we should abuse the relationship.”
“People need Saxolotl.”
“People have survived remarkably well without Saxolotl.”
“Have they truly lived?”
I pointed the paddle at you.
“Do not send that song to Appalachia Radio.”
You smiled.
I knew that smile.
“Ravyn.”
“What?”
“Promise me.”
You leaned forward and kissed the back of my head.
That usually meant you intended to win me over one way or another.
I sighed.
“That wasn’t a promise.”
“No,” you said softly.
“But it was a very good kiss.”
I hated that you had a point.
A little while later, I looked back at you.
“You know what’s ridiculous?”
“Several things. Be specific.”
“We went out for a quiet paddle.”
I looked toward the river ahead.
“And we’re going home with a blues-singing, saxophone-playing, self-regenerating amphibian who’s also a hopeless romantic.”
You grinned.
“It’s so us.”
I hated how correct that was.
Too Close to the Ash Heap
The landscape changed so gradually I almost missed it.
The trees became thinner.
The air changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Green gave way to tired earth.
Ruined industrial structures began appearing through the distance like old bones.
You stopped singing.
The paddles rested across your knees.
I looked back at you.
“What?”
You were studying the horizon.
“How far did we come?”
I looked around.
Then I understood.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
The Ash Heap wasn’t far now.
There was something deeply appropriate about accidentally approaching one of Appalachia’s ugliest regions because we had become distracted inventing a saxophone-playing axolotl.
You dipped a paddle into the water.
“So.”
“So.”
“We should probably turn around.”
“Probably.”
“Before the romantic river cruise becomes something else.”
“Good plan.”
You maneuvered the dinghy around.
I watched the distant industrial haze rotate out of view.
Then Jettyroot was ahead of us again.
Somewhere.
Beyond the bends.
Beyond the trees.
Home.
Where the Water Slows
The return trip was quieter.
Not silent.
Just softer.
The afternoon had begun leaning toward evening, and the light had changed with it.
You rowed steadily.
I leaned back against you again.
Saxolotl Blues had exhausted itself.
For several minutes there was only water brushing against the hull.
Then you hummed something else.
Slower this time.
Not funny.
I listened.
You tried a line.
“Take me where the water slows…”
I didn’t move.
You pulled the paddles.
Another line came.
“Where the soft night breeze still flows…”
I smiled.
“That’s better.”
“Better than Saxolotl?”
“Considerably.”
“You wound me.”
“I’ll buy you a bandage.”
You kept rowing.
The melody wandered.
Changed.
Returned.
Some lines disappeared almost as soon as you sang them.
Others stayed.
That was how songs sometimes happened with you.
Not constructed.
Found.
Like they had been floating somewhere nearby and you had simply reached into the air at the right moment.
The banks narrowed around us.
Branches leaned toward the river.
You sang another fragment.
“I don’t need the world…”
Then stopped.
I waited.
The plastic paddles dipped.
Pulled.
Rose.
Dripped.
Then:
“…just you.”
I looked down at my hands.
I didn’t make a joke.
Some things don’t need rescuing from sincerity.
Jettyroot, Ahead
Jettyroot appeared around the bend.
First the broken edge of the jetty.
Then the waiting stand.
Then pieces of home emerging between the trees.
You slowed the dinghy as we approached.
The hull bumped softly against the landing.
You climbed out first.
The boat immediately tried to escape.
You caught it.
“Traitor.”
“It’s a boat.”
“It knows what it did.”
You held it steady and reached for me.
I took your hand.
One foot onto the landing.
Then the other.
Your hand moved to my waist as you guided me onto solid ground.
“You okay?”
I looked at you.
“After surviving the legendary Appalachian dolphish?”
“Very dangerous creature.”
“Nearly got us.”
“You’re welcome.”
I squeezed your hand.
“I’m okay.”
We started up.
First the wooden steps beside the waiting stand.
Then the metal ladder leading higher toward the house.
You went ahead.
I followed.
Or, more accurately, I attached myself to you.
One hand went around the steel railing.
The other hooked lazily into the waist strap of your pants.
You stopped climbing.
“Are you using me as an elevator?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m providing moral support.”
“You aren’t even climbing.”
“I am climbing.”
“You’re hanging off my pants.”
“Efficiently.”
You laughed and pulled yourself another rung higher.
Which pulled me with you.
“See?”
“Free ride.”
“Teamwork.”
“Parasite.”
“Axolotl.”
You couldn’t argue with that.
Mist Over the River
We reached the balcony and started toward the front of the house.
You threw an arm around my shoulders.
Mine settled around your waist.
Then we stopped.
From up there we could see the river we had just traveled.
It looked different from above.
Smaller.
Quieter.
The last light caught in the water between the trees.
Mist had begun collecting along the banks.
Thin at first.
Almost transparent.
The river was still peaceful.
Still vibrant.
But slowly disappearing beneath white.
You leaned against me.
I leaned back.
For a while we just watched.
Then you said:
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
“You owe me a river song.”
I looked up at you.
“I owe you?”
“Yep.”
“You spent half the trip singing about an axolotl.”
“That’s unrelated.”
“Completely unrelated?”
“Entirely different contractual arrangement.”
I smiled.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“I’ll help you finish it.”
You kissed the side of my head.
“Deal.”
We continued toward the house.
Valuable Trash
Clerkle passed the garden alcove just as you put the key into the door.
His wheels rattled over the boards.
Then his speaker crackled.
“A happy couple, tasty truffles, nothing but fungi, into my trash bin, no trouble.”
You stopped.
The key remained halfway inside the lock.
I stared at Clerkle.
Clerkle continued rolling.
I looked at you.
You looked at me.
I waited.
You turned the key.
“He’s not wrong, though.”
I blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“Truffles are fungi.”
The door creaked open.
I stared at you for another second.
Then followed you inside.
“I don’t think that was the important part of what he said.”
“It was factually accurate.”
“He wants to put us in his trash.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not reassuring.”
You dropped the keys onto the coffee table.
“If Clerkle tells you you’re going directly into his trash bin, that means you have value.”
I considered that.
Unfortunately, there was logic in it.
“Premium garbage.”
“Rare truffles.”
“Fungi.”
“Valuable fungi.”
I sighed.
“Fine.”
You smiled.
I hated how often that happened.
The Coffee Table Is Not a Footstool
You collapsed onto the sofa.
“Home.”
“Home.”
Then you stretched out and put both feet on the coffee table.
I slapped them.
“OW.”
“Feet.”
You looked down.
Then at me.
“Oops.”
“How many times?”
“Several.”
“A thousand.”
“That seems statistically unlikely.”
“The coffee table is not a footstool.”
You moved your feet onto the sofa.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
I sat beside you.
The hearth crackled.
Outside, the mist continued gathering over the river.
Charlie was nearby doing Charlie things, which at that particular moment meant nothing at all.
His chores were finished.
He stood quietly where Charlie stood, wearing the same painted smile he always wore.
We didn’t judge.
Charlie liked to think.
At least, we had decided he did.
Charlie himself had never offered an opinion on the matter.
Or anything else.
You stared into the fire for a while.
Then:
“Babe.”
“Hm?”
“I came up with a bridge.”
I turned toward you.
“For the river song?”
You nodded.
“Wanna hear it?”
“Always.”
Forward, Forward
You leaned forward, elbows on your knees.
Then recited it.
“On the jetty, your hand over mine, Or in a dinghy, the river so fine, Plastic paddles push us onward… onward, Quiet banks whisper, ‘forward… forward…’”
I stopped looking at the fire.
You continued.
“Trusting the weight of our dreams, And let our fate be guided by streams, Hearts steady through drift and tide, Jettyroot refuge anchors, and heals us inside.”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
The hearth snapped softly.
Charlie continued thinking.
Probably.
You looked at me.
“Well?”
I took your hand.
“I think we found our way home.”
You smiled.
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes.”
You leaned back beside me.
Our shoulders touched.
A few minutes later, your head rested against mine.
Neither of us announced it.
Neither of us needed to.
Charlie Kept Watch
I don’t remember falling asleep.
I remember the fire.
I remember your shoulder against mine.
I remember Charlie standing quietly nearby.
His chores were done.
There was nothing else he needed to do.
He was simply being Charlie.
Maybe thinking.
Maybe not.
We weren’t supposed to judge.
I remember thinking I should probably get up.
Lock the door.
Check the hearth.
Take off my boots.
Do any of the small sensible things that separate civilization from waking up on a sofa with a stiff neck.
I did none of them.
My head found your shoulder.
Yours eventually rested against mine.
The river disappeared beneath the mist outside.
The hearth burned lower.
Charlie kept doing Charlie things.
Which, by then, was nothing.
And sometime during all of that—
the world simply went away.
The Morning After
At seven the next morning, I woke in bed.
That was the first problem.
I stared at the ceiling.
Morning light slipped through the curtains.
I stretched without getting up.
Then looked beside me.
Your back was turned toward me.
You were still asleep.
Or close enough.
I frowned.
I remembered the sofa.
The hearth.
Charlie.
Your shoulder.
I did not remember the stairs.
I did not remember this room.
I definitely did not remember getting into bed.
I moved closer.
“Mmm?”
You shifted.
Then rolled toward me without opening your eyes.
“You were totally out when I carried you upstairs.”
Your voice was barely awake.
I stared at you.
“You carried me?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
I smiled.
You opened one eye.
“You’re the smart one.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
You closed it again.
“Least I can do is carry the weight.”
I lay there looking at you.
There were approximately twelve sarcastic responses available to me.
I used none of them.
Instead I tucked myself against you.
Your arm found me automatically.
Home
Beside the bed was a piece of paper.
You had apparently stayed awake after carrying me upstairs.
Of course you had.
The beginnings of the river song were written across it.
Verses.
A chorus.
The bridge you had recited beside the hearth.
By breakfast, you would probably change three lines.
By evening, it might have a title.
Later, we would record it.
Maybe send it to Appalachia Radio.
Julie had aired stranger things.
Saxolotl Blues would almost certainly find its way onto another recording whether I approved of it or not.
I already knew this.
So did you.
Outside, somewhere below the house, the river kept moving.
Not toward anything important.
Not away from anything either.
Just forward.
Forward.
The night before had begun with a piece of sour candy dipped in sugar.
Then an old dinghy.
Plastic paddles.
Half a sandwich.
Stolen fizz.
A terrible joke.
A deeply romantic amphibian.
A river song.
Mist over the water.
Clerkle declaring us valuable fungi.
My hand in yours.
Your shoulder beneath my head.
Nothing important had happened.
And somehow, everything had.
Sometimes you don’t need to know where the current is taking you.
Sometimes you already know where you belong.
Jettyroot.
Home. 💜