THE WATER COLLECTOR

--by Dan J. McDonald



Sam Aquinas stepped out onto his front porch and noted that the shadows were rich and deep under a brilliant Sun this morning. A gentle breeze blew with a warmth that hinted of Summer, but let one know that it was not quite here. Sam had some business to attend to in town today and thought he would enjoy the two-mile walk up the gently sloping hill that would take him there. He would most likely catch a ride home with someone when he was ready to return.

Sam walked the hundred yards from his porch out to the roadway, then turned and headed into town. As he crossed the Wet River bridge, he stopped for a moment and peered down at the gently gurgling water below. He chuckled to himself at the audacity of calling this a river. Oh, it did run for a couple of hundred miles, but its average width was about two feet and its average depth about the same.

The water was interesting to Sam because he was a water collector. For more than forty years, he had collected water samples from various bodies of water throughout the country and even some from foreign lands. The library shelves in his den were filled, not with books, but with a few hundred neatly-labeled jars containing Sam's water collection. Each label indicated the date and place of collection of the sample contained in the jar to which the label was affixed.

Actually, many of the jars contained no more than a hint of the water that had once been there, since the jars had not been sealed tightly enough to prevent evaporation. In those jars still holding water, the clarity varied from crystalline to muddy opaque. The display was interesting enough so that occasionally a stranger would pull into Sam's place and ask to see his water museum, having heard about it through some distant friend or relative.

Sam resumed his trip into town, and first stopped at the OK Pain Clinic. He had for several weeks now been undergoing accupuncher treatments. When he had first heard about these treatments, he thought they had something to do with a Chinese doctor sticking long thin needles into various places on one's body and twisting the needles slowly back and forth.

But Sam learned that accupuncher was not acupuncture. He walked into the treatment room and Doctor Sadem asked, "What'll it be today, Sam? Light, moderate or heavy?"

Sam said, "I think moderate today."

With that, Dr. Sadem quickly reached out his left fist and punched Sam in the stomach, then followed with his right fist. As Sam bent over and clutched at his midsection in response to the pain, Dr. Sadem brought down a karate chop on the back of his neck. However, since he did not wish to do any real harm, the force of this blow was restrained.

Sam thanked Dr. Sadem and went back out to the front office to complete the necessary paperwork. He thought that if he had to pay for these treatments he probably wouldn't undergo them. But since they were fully covered by insurance and he had read in some magazine somewhere that they were supposed to be good for something, he might as well take advantage of the situation. Maybe one day he would go back and find that magazine and know what it was the treatments were good for.

He continued to his next stop, which was Edgar the Wordseller's office. He opened the door and walked in as the bell rang to let anyone inside know that someone had just walked in. Edgar asked, "What can I do for you today, Sam?"

"I need a word, Ed," replied Sam. He wanted to be cautious because he knew Edgar would try to sell him a word with a bunch of expensive letters in it, like z and x. He was determined not to be caught in that trap.

"OK, Sam, what kind of word are you interested in?"

"I want a word to describe the action one take in lifting the left foot from the ground and moving it forward, then setting it down on the ground again in the normal act of walking."

Ed said, "Well, to me that sounds like bazzle, b-a-z-z-l-e."

"Hold on there a minute," Sam responded, "you know I can't afford two z's."

Ed thought for a moment. "Well, it really needs those two z's to have a smooth flowing quality, like the sound of a buzzing honeybee. We could probably work out a payment plan so you could have the two z's."

Sam said, "Now you know I 'm an old man and I don't care whether I hear honeybees or buzzsaws. If that's the best you can do, I guess I'll just have to order through the mail."

"Well," said Ed, "I suppose we could spell it b-a-z-s-l-e, although it doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

"How about b-a-s-z-i-l?" questioned Sam.

"Putting the s first means it has to have a hard sound and creates two very distinct strongly-pronounced syllables which could just as well be two separate words. No, it has to be the z first to maintain the smooth flowing motion you want. And the i-l ending might do fine in conversation, since no one will notice it anyway, but on paper it has to be l-e."

Sam figured he had made his point and not been taken in for the two z's, so he was content and agreed on the word. Ed told him it should be in in about a week.

Ed did have to make one last effort at a sale, however, and told Sam he now needed a word to describe the action one makes in picking up the right foot from the ground and moving it forward through the air, then placing it on the ground again in the normal act of walking. Sam said he could wait a while for that; the left foot movement would do for now.

Sam was feeling very pleased with himself today, and decided to go ahead and walk home rather than catch a ride. His spirits quickly deflated when he walked into his den and saw that it had been vandalized, with his water collection ruined. Broken glass littered the very wet floor. He had been having a few problems with a couple of juveniles lately. He suspected they got their kicks from harassing older folks, and at first he thought in terms of revenge.

However, after settling down for a while and deciding what he had to do, he began cleaning up the mess. What no one know was that he had created a backup for his water collection, since there had always been the possibility of its being destroyed. He had taken pictures of each and every sample on the day it had been collected. He now dug these pictures out and began to place them where the jars had been previously. After several hours, he had a nice, new clean display. Now people wanting to see his water museum could view these pictures of water samples, which were much more orderly than a bunch of jars could ever be. And the water would always remain in the pictures, since pictures don't evaporate.

After finishing this task, Sam went back out on his porch and sat. It was late in the afternoon now, and he just stared out toward the road. After awhile, he reached over and picked up a jar which had been sitting on the porch for months if not years, and headed slowly toward the Wet River. He stood at its edge, noting that for all the years he had known the river, it was ever new and clear, as if facing the world for the first time.

He knelt beside the river and stretched his arm out over it, then dipped the empty jar below the surface, allowing it to fill quickly with Wet River water. He stood and headed back toward his house. He would prepare the label for the jar when he got inside, and this would be his first sample for his new collection.