i walked by the river with a scarf and a speedway coffee, listening to the September playlist from a friend, as instructed by the... well, instructions on the email about said playlist. and i decided to stop and look over the rail for awhile at the swarm of fisherman in their waders in the river. and a little, black, BMX biker boy came up and leaned on the rail right next to me. our elbows were touching. and he said, slightly audibly above the sound of the music in my head, "i wish i had a fishing pole." and i said, "you don't?" him, "No. Do you?" me, "Nope." he told me he wishes he could just pick up all the water in his hand and hold it so the fishermen could get all the fish without having to stand in the water all day. "like a superpower?" i said "yeah. and i would do it from inside the water, you know, with telekinesis!" and i said cool. then i asked him if he went to school today and where and did he like it. he doesn't hate school. he doesn't love it either. then we commented on the whole, full grown tree that had floated down stream and gotten stuck by the spillway. you can see all the roots. and we decided it was cool and that we had never seen the roots of a full grown tree just out in the open air like that. then we talked about the algae in the river on the rocks and about seaweed. and he said "I think snails eat algae" me, "how do you know?" him, "now i know you don't watch sponge bob but, on one episode they all got covered in this green stuff and i think it was algae and then a snail ate it off them." me, "actually i do watch sponge bob." and then we threw rocks and sticks in the river for a long time. we watched the sticks get sucked down by the current at the bottom of the spillway and we watched the ripples of the rocks we threw, stick in circles in the water. and the circles followed the spillway down on the surface of the water, into the foam at the bottom. and each time it happened we looked at each other with raised eyebrows and muppet smiles as if we just discovered something that seems like impossible physics. he asked, "how old are you?" "25" i said. "how old are you?" "10" he said. i never finished the playlist.