Ripples 11 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

11 Malling

Like water flowing down hill, people flowed into the mall.

Flood tides of people washed along from one store to the next, swirling eddies swept up and deposited in front of store windows then washed away again. An unseen current propelling shoppers along walkways and inlets in hopes that at some will grasp for That Door as a toehold before being swept along to the next embankment of opportunity.

She often wondered how the driftwood branches she collected got to the beach. Unlike the shifting waves of shoppers who flowed into The Mall by choice, the branches often started far away, high in the mountains. Washed down streams and rivers, most of which ended in dammed waterways. Artificial lakes, attempting to hold the power of rain and harness it for human use. The wood, floated down the water ways sometimes to sink, waterlogged into the muddy bottoms, yet always seeking freedom to follow the water. Water: nourisher and reaper.

How the branches made it over the dams she didn't know. Perhaps some sudden rainstorm allowed the branches to continue their journey. Perhaps they managed to find an alternate path, inching along drainage ditches, attempting to avoid the glare of human eyes and crushing machinery.

She followed the schooling shoppers was they flowed thru The Mall, easing her way towards one of the larger eddies. A large pool formed in front of her destination. Slipping free from the rip tide, she entered.

The Fruit Stand Store gathered more that its share of dead wood.