‘What do fish think of the rain?’
‘Heh’ chuckled the old man, his voice deep and warm. He breathed in steadily and let out a gentle sigh, in wonderment. Not a single day passed without such a delightful conundrum finding its way into the child’s mind.
‘A careless fish’ he began, ‘that pays little attention to its surroundings, may find itself in an ever shrinking puddle atop a rock as the tide recedes’. The old man retracted his hand slowly to illustrate his meaning. ‘This fish would be grateful for the rain and would vow never to be careless again’.
‘The bigger fish, though careful enough to no longer get stuck on the rock, may have grown complacent since water is plentiful and now takes the rain for granted. Understand?’
The child frowned, took a moment, met the man’s warm gaze, then nodded confidently. ‘Thank you’.
Sophia put it down to imagination, the way her daughter would talk to herself. The child never asked her any questions, apparently preferring to sit on the verandah day after day and send her question out onto the wind. It never took her long to somehow arrive at a solution that satisfied her curiosity.