The creek was wider than a crick, but not so swell to be a stream. It was also much more detailed, with the current catching what was left of the afternoon light. A weeping willow waved in a breeze from its closest bank, and I took it as an invitation.

Grumble.

“I heard ya this time and all the times before, stomach. Working on it, even!”

There was a nice spot under the tree's roots, with some shadowed shallows promising for a fine kettle of fish. Even better was the flat, worn rock near the water’s edge, like it had been made for me to sit on. I unhooked the hook from the fishing rod’s handle and—

“Bait!” I exclaimed to myself as my stomach grumbled again. “Hold on, I’m outta order.”

I set the rod down, stood up, and started scuffing at the soft dirt a bit away from the tree with my shoe.

Bupkis.

With a sigh, I got on my knees and put my gloves to work.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

I dug deeper.

“Aaaaahhhh!” something screamed from the hole.

“Aaaaahhhh!” I shouted in response, scrambling back.

A tiny worm poked its head up and glared.

“This is private property!” he bellowed. “I have my rights, you know!”

I thrust my dirty gloves behind my back. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know worms could talk!”

“Trespasser!” he spat. “Dug up my whole garden! I just paid off my mortgage, and now this! Now move along before I call the cops!”

There’s cops here?

I gulped and apologized once more before skedaddling back over to the willow tree.

Mr. Narrator! That worm—it spoke!

“I should have remembered that…” he replied slowly. “But what’s to remember? I haven’t been here before, and yet I…”

I waited for him to finish before realizing he wasn’t about to say anymore. Then a thought struck me like a bolt.

“Hey!” I shouted over the shallows. “Any fish in here?”

A gigantic bass, wildly out of place for the small creek containing it, surfaced and sprayed me with a jet stream of water. “Who wants to know?”

“I was just askin’!” I shouted while stomping my foot. “No need to squirt me, squirt!”

The fish waggled its tail indignantly, let out a harumph, bunched itself up, and then dove back into the water with a loud splash.

I stared for a few moments, mentally discarding my fishing rod. “Well… That’s that. There’s no way I can eat something that talks.”

My stomach growled in protest.

“I don’t wanna hate myself in the morning,” I replied, giving my tummy a whap. “You’d feel the same way.”

Morning… Will I have a place to sleep until morning?

Rent’s due tonight.

But worst was the fact that Mr. Narrator hadn’t chimed in.

“You alright in there?” I asked, focusing my thoughts above my ears.

“Just swell, Sally, just swell.”

“You know you can tell me anythin’, right? It’s not like I got someone else to tell it to.”

“Let’s focus on your troubles, Sally. Mine aren’t of any measure.”

Before I could give him a piece of my mind, I felt a little tug in my ear.

“Over there, Sally! Look!”

I turned towards the tug, finding myself looking at another tree far across the creek.

“The tree over there looks healthy enough,” I said a bit uncertainly. “Downright doodled, even.”

“It’s an apple tree. Newtown Pippin, in fact.”

With a squint, I replied, “Your eyes must be better than mine.”

“And the taste, Sally! Oh the taste! That tree’s apples—well, don’t be fooled by their small size—but they start out tart, and then they’re sweet underneath. Crisp, with no mealy-mouthed—"

“So you have been here before then, Mr. Narrator?”

“I—no. Maybe?”

The creek wasn’t hardly swift or wide, so I took off my shoes and carried them as I stepped in.

“Well, a different question then,” I continued, splashing my way across. “Where were you before roosting here in my thinker?”

There was a long pause.

“Just… in the dark, mostly. Waiting, I suppose? That’s what it felt like. Waiting. And waiting.” He sighed. “Sometimes I think I can almost remember something different. Bright spots? But they’re fuzzy, like when you try to read something through warped glass.”

Waiting in the dark?

“Were you alone?”

“Most of the time,” he admitted. “I think. It’s hard to say. I don’t remember much else, really. Sorry, Sally. I know that sounds suspicious.”

“Well,” I said finally, “I suppose ending up in a gal’s head might be a bit traumatizin’.”

“I don’t think so,” he disagreed. “I think the last place was much, much worse.”

Gruuuuumble.

“Pardon me,” I mumbled, noting that was the loudest stomach growl yet.

The apple tree swayed in the breeze before me now, and I shook out my feet before slipping on my shoes. I leaned in carefully and whispered, “Hello? Any opinions about a salamander climbing your trunk?”

The tree didn’t respond.

“Oh, thank heavens,” I said with a sigh. “For a moment I was worried you were a toon, too.”

It was easy enough to shimmy up the tree. Its branches were broad and well-spaced, as if it had been designed for exactly this action sequence. Once I was in the foliage, I reached for the nearest apple and polished it on my shoulder.

Before I took a bite, I eyed it real hard.

“You can’t talk either, right, apple?”

Whew! No response!

Mr. Narrator sure got the apple’s taste right. It was tiny but packed a punch, sour but sweet, with a good crunch. My tummy was settled the moment I swallowed the first bite.

═════════✦✦/ ✦═════════

STATUS EFFEC/ T RESOLVED

System Says: G/ rumbles gone!

═════════✦/ ✦✦═════════

Why's the card all screwy?

Mr. Narrator sighed. “You ripped the status effect card in half when it appeared, remember? Poor thing had to stitch itself back together.”

Oh. Maybe I should be a little nicer to 'em.

The card faded somewhat sluggishly, and I ended up settling at the crook of a large branch, looking out on the serene scene from my perch.

“The leaves are really pretty,” I mumbled as my mood started to stabilize. “Nice detail too, what with them polka dots—”

Polka dots?

I raised my gaze higher. Jammed into the fork of a branch above me, half-hidden by dense leaves, was a bindle.

Whaddya mean you ain't never heard of a bindle?

You know, one of them cloths on a stick. The journeyman’s jaunty companion. A carry-all of handkerchief proportions.

Now, this one was spotted and a little weathered, but that was all the better, on account of it’d probably been there a while, with no one in particular looking for it.

I reached up and tugged it free.

A card appeared.

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

RARE ITEM ACQUIRED: BINDLE

Capacity: More than it looks.

Storage: Almost anything you can stuff into it.

Restrictions: (4)

Nothing alive.

Nothing too heavy.

Nothing too large.

Nothing too... ‘you know’.

Note: This bindle stick is load-bearing, to a certain breaking point.

System Says: What goes around comes around.

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

I read it twice before it disappeared.

“What goes around comes around?” I asked aloud. “Why does that sound like a threat?”

“I believe it’s meant to be reassuring.”

“This card’s from the same outfit that gave me a strike one this morning,” I reminded him pointedly.

“Reassurance is always relative,” he conceded.

I turned the bindle over in my hands several times, feeling something small and solid on the inside. Intrigued, I reached in and pulled it out. “Now what do we have here?”

It was a pocket watch with a gold case that had turned tarnished along its edges. Its chain was sturdy. The backside was worn flat from use, and the letter ‘W’ was etched in the middle.

I popped it open. The hands were stopped at five o’clock on the dot.

“A fine mechanism you have there,” Mr. Narrator noted.

“Too bad it's busted,” I replied, hefting the pocketwatch. “You know if there’s a pawn shop on the lot?”

“You can’t just sell something like that!” he said with a loud gasp. “They don’t make them like they used to!”

“But what good is it if it don’t work?”

He made some very soft, strangled noises. “Then you get it fixed!”

“With what?” I asked. “I don’t got no money—uh—points. Rent’s due even. But you’re right, it probably isn’t worth it now.” With a sigh, I shoved the broken pocketwatch back into the bindle.

“Surely there’s a watchmaker out there who can fix it. Oh Sally, promise me you won’t just sell it for stars!”

I almost told him he was being silly, but no. Sentimental, maybe? It was a pretty fine piece, and he seemed like a guy who had a similar aesthetic.

“I’ll hold onto it,” I said.

For now.

“Good,” he breathed with a sigh of relief. “Now, let's—”

There was a loud, reverberating rumble from the sky. Nearly startled out of my skin, I looked up. A bunch of clouds roiled across the sky, shoving the sun out of their way with angry arms.

Oh no...

“How do you feel about singing in the rain?” Mr. Narrator asked in a whisper.

With a loud clap of thunder, the heavens broke open, dousing everyone and everything in reach.

I wrung out my hair and spluttered, “Ask me again when I got somethin' to sing about.”