The story
A dark cloud arrived with remarkable confidence. I pulled the canoe into a sheltered inlet before the first heavy drops found my sleeves. Across the pool the far bank disappeared behind a moving curtain. The quiet afternoon became a thousand small circles.
I sat beneath the broad bend of a gum tree with a cup warming my hands. My notebook stayed in its dry bag. There was nothing to record that would be improved by a wet pencil: the smell of bark, the changing colour of the cliff, the sudden bright seam in the clouds.
When the rain passed, a bass rolled once in the clear water near the landing. I watched the last circles widen around it. The pages would have to wait until camp. I had been given an hour without a task, and I intended to use all of it.
In this invented journey, stopping is part of travelling.