For a scrap of a thing, no bigger than a thimble, that noise was a lullaby.
He landed in a pool of stagnant tea, shared a brief, silent greeting with a piece of floating parsley, and continued. flushed away 1 10
"No," he said, and his voice was a high, clear chime. He jumped . He launched himself over the oil's slick back, a perfect parabola of distilled courage. He landed on the other side with a splash and didn't look back. For a scrap of a thing, no bigger
He was just a drop of water again. Tiny. Unremarkable. And utterly, completely free. He jumped
He came to rest on a sandbar of congealed… something. He didn’t have a word for it. He was new.
A waterfall of congealed cooking fat, solid and slow-moving, cascaded from a grating above. It was a 1-in-10 grade, almost vertical for someone his size. He backed up, took a running start—a frantic jiggling of his spherical form—and launched himself.