Puddle People

Nobody believes me about the people in the puddles, the ones who are more shadows than people with actual features.

They are more substantial than ghosts: I know because I tried passing my hand through one and instead of going straight through the puddle-person rippled and disappeared.

Their hats are shapes on their heads, and the only way to determine where their shirt ends and their wrist starts are the inches of visible space between the cuff and their skin, but when they tip their hats to me I can tell.

I told Mama and she dismissed it at first (she was more interested in the lady selling fancy Parisian hats with died feathers and paper flowers) but when I finally told her she glanced in the puddle to humour me before laughing and shaking her head.

I insisted they were there and her dismissals escalated to a lecture about the apparent lack of realism in puddle-people.

So I watch them all on my own, and I stand around puddles to guard them from those imperceptive park-goers who would step in a puddle in their boots and not think twice about it.

I’ve come to know a few of them: the lady with the hat, the man with the cane, and the man with the umbrella.

They nod and wave when it becomes too dark to stay in the park and I have to leave, and I’m sure if I could see their faces they would be smiling.

I still try to tell some people, those that smile as they approach me, but I known they don’t believe me when they ask why I’m standing by a puddle and I tell them about the puddle-people and their smiles falter.

I’m not so worried about not being believed anymore, (I can always use overactive imagination as a an excuse) but when the rain finally stops and the sun comes out, when their puddles dry, where will they go?

Text by Lucie MacAulay