The wind ripped through the patched cloak that made up my body. The bamboo beams of the raft, shoddily constructed by yours truly, clunking together with hollow tocks. The drum like beat echoed my heart, erratic as it was, the two noises somehow overshadowing the roar of the wind and river.

A waterfall, Time had taken a sharp downward turn. I’m sure some philosophical concept would have something to say about how significant that was. I was more worried about the significant impact below.

The fall wasn’t what concerned me, after all– height had no effect on concepts. So what was I afraid of?

The water itself, falling in with nothing to hold on to, was dangerous. The River Time meant change. The River Time was the connection between the human world and the garden.

To fall into the river was to fall into the world of the humans. To find oneself caught in a human shell and living a human life– ignorant of your origin. Unable to return until some unknown thing allowed you back.

It could be any one thing the humans were known to do that added to the garden– learning, experimenting, experiencing, or even dying. Each of those actions brought a tiny change that would find its way to wash up– or away– something or someone by the banks of the river.

As was clear currently, it was not always a peaceful change. As I hurtled down the waterfall, I could see the other concepts on shore desperately trying to contain the river raging through the land.

They fought. Walling off or stopping the water with whatever they had on hand. The river violently ripping a new bank into the world. Some were sucked into the flow, whatever thing or function they represented and protected falling in along with them. Taken to be relocated, changed, or destroyed in the changing Time. Others stood farther back, reality rippling and changing around them as they altered what they could to keep what we had created. Nature was unyielding, and they were the reason.

I continued to plummet, passing by their battles without the time to appreciate the effort.

I hit the pool of water below the falls, and the only thing I could focus on was keeping my raft together. Immediately I lost two of the six large bamboo beams. They slipped out of the rough woven rope loops and vanished into the turmoil around me. It was all I could do to grab the rope and twist it around my hands.

Damn these clumsy gloves.

The water swirled and spat me down the next sloping rapid, sending me sideways up a wall of water as two currents interacted. My jumble of bamboo threatened to capsize as my face was brought close to the water. I could see the chaotic tides of fate below for just a few moments before my raft righted. We bucked and twirled, slamming into a boulder in the middle of the flow.

For just a second I could see Stubborn sitting atop the unmoving stone, their gi and headband flowing in the wind stirred by the water, their eyes and every part of their bearing glaring at the river's rage.

I lost another beam.

The three I had left rolled beneath me, twisting and pulling on the two ropes twisted around my hands. A wave and a tug too far tore my left glove away. With it went two more beams.

Shit.

I overbalanced.

Without that glove I had lost a hand, it contained my essence, a part of what made me– me. As an aspect I was hardly well-formed enough to have a hand or really anything beneath my robe and mask.

Before I could fall into the river I hit the largest rapid yet, a well of water sucked me and my one beam vessel down. My stomach and robe rising up at the drop. Then we were shot over the wave, a good few feet of air suddenly interposed between me and the river.

I paused there, my upwards momentum stalling, equaling the gravity trying to take over. It was the first still moment since I had gone over the falls. I could see, all around me, concepts working together to mitigate the destruction from the river running its course. Concepts winning their fight against Time– A fight I was losing

None looked in my direction. I was on my own.

I crashed down again, landing atop the lone bamboo beam like a semi-aquatic acrobat– balanced on top of the thin support.

A wave twists the beam underneath me and I fall.

It’s all I can do to hug the beam on my way down. If I let go, the water will suck me into whatever turmoil is happening in the human world. As I cling to the last piece of my raft, the river still has its way with us, spinning us through waves and foam, slamming us against rocks and debris as we bob down the rapids.

Finally, I bump against a shore, the other logs of my raft brushing my shoulders. Gasping, I crawled up on the river bank, relieved that my grip hadn’t given out. I adjusted my mask to sit more comfortably on my being, and sprawled there– sodden and sore.

I was in a forest. The sharp pine needles digging into my robe. Beneath the needles was a soft moss blanket, lumpily covering the worn river rock bank. The moss softened the harsh roar of the rapids above, the rustling of the ferns and forest mixed just over the sound of rushing river. I took another deep breath, my panicked panting done. My senses filling with the smell of pine mixed with soft petrichor from the wet moss at the river's edge. The glade instantly put me at ease.

I wonder if Peace or Calm had made this space.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

A voice startled me, “Quite the ride she took you on. Eh?”

“What– Who?” My voice gurgled out as my water logged form sloshed to its’ feet.

I wasn’t alone. A concept sat just over the ridge of a boulder that dominated the glade, hanging out over the River Time.

I couldn’t believe I had missed them. They wore a hat, a flamboyant tricorn cap with a feather that had to be half the size of their body. The feather shimmered in the light, going through all the beautiful colors a concept could see. It was jammed into one rolled-up side of the huge tricorn headpiece. The hat was the only easy thing to describe about the concept, the rest of its body shimmered and shifted like an image generated by a computer with no concept of consistency. Skin color, clothing, and proportions shifting and changing with every movement and moment. The effect made the concept look restless and constantly moving even as it sat there relatively still on the boulder.

The only feature other than the hat that stayed consistent was their eyes. They were always bright and friendly, shifting through pastels that gleamed and glinted with good cheer. Even as their moth and body shifted though twists and posture.

“Who? The river! She took you for a heck of a ride! Unless you were asking about me. In that case, I am Whimsy!” the concept took a bow without seeming to stand from the rock.

The name rolled through me as they spoke it. A concept speaking their name always had an impact, like a skilled orator giving an entire impassioned speech in one word. They knew who they were and when they spoke it you could feel that conviction.

“You look confused, young Aspect. Come sit with me.” They gesture me closer up the rock.

“I’ve never seen you from the river?” I almost muttered as the confusing concept usurered me on. “I can see everyone from there.”

“Of course not! I’m hard to find when your perspective is all about the changing Time.” The concept pats the moss next to it as I reach them, “But I know you, Aspect, you could even say we are related. In a way, I am a father or mother to your kind. Many of you aspects are conceived when a human has a… flight of fancy– a moment of me, if you will. Though, perhaps, I am an aunt or uncle in your specific case.”

He chuckles as he says this. I don’t get what’s funny.

“Responsibility and Maturity get on my case about you all. They think you deserve more guidance from me. It's no matter. Others can give that. My nature does not play well with planning and preparation. Though, when it does happen that we meet, I try my best to help. Eh?”

He wants to help me?

I squint at him, “How do you think you can help? You know something about what I am?”

“Not in the slightest!” the unhelpful concept chirps.

“Then why are you here?” I’m already tired of talking to them.

“Hmm,” the concept seems to look around their shifting form, making it hard to track their gaze, “I will teach you to fish, Eh!”

It seems to me they just spoke on a… whim.

Dammit. I see what's going on here.

“Fish? For what? There are no fish in the River Time.” I say dryly.

I’ve tried to drift along with a rod in the water before, never caught anything but the edge of my robe. The experience was not as calming as Fisher had led me to believe.

“Memories my dear Aspect, we fish for memories. One of the few ways to understand the human world without jumping into the River Time wholesale. Watch carefully, young one.”

Whimsy gestures with a limb and casts a gleaming hook into the river with a bamboo rod I could’ve sworn they didn’t have a second ago. They focus and still for just one second, and the rod seems to take on some new meaning. It quickly snags something in the river, and Whimsy drags the memory ashore.

On the end of Whimsy’s hook is a wispy glowing blue ball, like the head of a dandelion. The wispy arms of the memory wave about, a few tangled in the hook, its ethereal nature unchanged between water and air. They hoist it up into view.

Whimsy gestures to the hook, “Did you catch how I caught this? Eh?”

That was a horrible joke “I-”

They cut me off. “No matter, I will explain! To catch a memory all one needs to share is a bit of themselves with the fishing rod. Just a bit of essence, mind you! Make the fishing rod too much a part of you, and the river will pull you all the way through. Get it right and– look!”

Whimsy takes the line and holds it closer to my face.

The way the memory is snagged doesn’t quite match up with reality. The wispy arms are tangled with something that shifts and writhes invisibly. The memories' limbs pass through both the hook and line it's caught on, as if those things were unreal.

“See! It's caught on just a little bit of me, snagged on whimsy– fitting for a memory, eh?” They give me a sly shifting smile, “I could do this without the rod, but the visual does help beginners.”

I reach out to get a closer look, and Whimsy carefully tugs the floating memory away from me.

“Acht! Careful there. Touch this and it’ll suck you right in. Tempting as that is, you can do it on your own time. Careful though, enough of these at once and you’ll wake up human– conceptless as a crying babe. If you want to see what it contains, catch one yourself.”

Whimsy carefully positions the line over the river and releases whatever bit of essence was in the rod, letting the memory slip the hook and drift down into the river. They set down the rod next to me.

“Take care now, and use this well. It may be your path to finding what you need. See you around, or perhaps goodbye. I’ll be off to wherever the wind takes me.”

That said, they stand, the movement blurry and abstract. For a moment they hesitate, checking the wind, then whirl around to the forest behind us. A half step to the forest is as far as they go before moon walking off the rock toward the river. Grabbing their hat as they go over the boulders’ edge– from vertical to horizontal in a split second. Without even a splash, Whimsy vanishes into the River Time, then from sight. The blue glowing current of fate sends them who-knows-where.

I am left drenched and alone in the peaceful glade. The only remnant of the bizarre concept, a normal looking fishing rod in the moss next to me.

What just happened?

For a while I sit in the glade, internally alternating between processing the crazed sequence of events that led me here and enjoying the peace and calm spread through this nook. Eventually my gaze wandered to the beams of my ruined raft tucked against the bank.

I needed to put that back together soon.

I wasn’t ready to get going yet.

My gaze fell to the mossy boulder top and the fishing rod on my other side.

The words seem to burst from my mind. “Fishing, Eh?”