Okay, I didn't do it, for I bear any Water Fairies no Ill Will. This is all my Favorite Husband's fault, and I am willing to testify against him thusly in court. If you can pay me the big bucks as an expert witness, so much the better. I'm not sure if this is an illustration of Occam's Razor or Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil, so I shall leave it for you to decide for yourself.

So two paths converged in the woods, so to speak, this past weekend. Since the Deathtrap died I was at the mercy of my Favorite Husband, at least until we could get another vehicle from his work, so we ended up driving around a lot together doing all the stupid little errands we usually do individually. And in driving around we happened to pass a bridge we frequently drive over in our individual and cooperative travels, one that bridges the shallow stream/brook/river which is the ultimate outlet of the reservoir up the mountain near our house.

This bridge is MILES and MILES away from the reservoir, and unless you wished to study the geography of the area and/or you are avid hikers/explorers like Mojo and her Favorite Husband, you might not know this, any more than you would know if you take the paths along the southern bank of this brook and go upstream a bit the paths eventually take you to this big ol' abandoned rock quarry complete with a water-filled quarry pond where they used to cut out the rock. And someone stocked it with fishies. I think they're just junk fish, like carp. But I digress.

Anyway, as we go over the bridge my Favorite Husband suddenly says, "Hey, ya know, by the way, a few months ago I saw X standing here on the bridge looking down at the water."

Now, X, for those of you who are not keeping track of Mojo's active social life, is a former friend and now very casual acquaintance. X is a very nice person of a Deeply Spiritual Bent, and ultimately X decided that True Friendship can ONLY be based on two people living in utter and complete agreement regarding everything on the face of the earth. Mojo tends to have a wider view of friendship and even acquaintanceship, for that matter. When you attempt to force Mojo into a sort of lockstep follow-the-leader role, well, no matter how utterly FIERCE the leader's butt might be, there will come a time when Mojo will get bored with the view and glance elsewhere--perhaps even Off The Path, scum bucket that she is.

And if Mojo happens to see people Off The Path she will probably wave and say hi and be polite to them and maybe even stop and chat, despite X's repeated warnings that so-and-so are Not Very Spiritual and they will somehow Tarnish My Inner Being if I give them the time of day. But Mojo being Mojo, she continued to be friendly to people--instead of, say, punch them in the stomach--and eventually X decided we were in fact on two entirely Different Spiritual Paths, and while Each Path Is Equally Valid it Grieved X To No End that I decided to stray from THEIR path. And while X still Loves Me Dearly and Wishes Me Well they feel they have, oh, ummm, let's say they have Spiritually Outgrown Me. Or whatever condescending way you may wish to say "kiss off, you loathsome slummer you". Because, like, hanging out with prostitutes and sinners may have been okay for someone enlightened like Jesus, mind you, but a lesser creature like Mojo is really better off only dealing with a better class of folk, and if she is too foolish to allow a smarter, more enlightened person to run her social life for her, well, she deserves whatever she gets, painful as it might be to witness.

To which Mojo and her Favorite Husband were all like, um, okay, whatever. And went skipping along THEIR merry way, rather glad for the change in scenery and the newfound freedom anyway. Because it's really kind of stressful for a groundling like Mojo to be around people who are experiencing the unfathomable joy of being continually and Conspicuously Enlightened, anyway, to steal a cool phrase from my pal Cosmic Connie.

I suspect our complete lack of remorse over X's rejection of us and our Evil Ways did not further endear us to X, who I think expected a more tearful and begging-for-enlightened-forgiveness sort of scene, but one of the reasons Mojo and her Favorite Husband get along so splendidly is that we both really have little use for any soap opera subplots in our lives, and those who try to introduce them, well, instead of playing one off the other they soon find us both looking longingly off The Chosen Path and glancing at our watches and saying stuff like "gosh, would you LOOK at the time!"

X was one of those people who love Nature as a concept so long as they don't actually have to seriously immerse themselves in it. X's idea of appreciating the Natural World, we eventually discovered after months of inviting them on hikes and whatnot, was to alternately lecture us on the need for some sort of critter Spirit Guide and the continual seeking of Oneness With Nature, combined with their own unique spiritual practice of pulling over their car every once in a while to commune with some dust- or road salt-encrusted rock or tree or bush or stream on the side of the road. Even if it was, say, on someone's front lawn. The Objet d' Affection CALLED to them, X would explain to the bewildered homeowner and/or us afterward, and they felt compelled to respond and commune and BE with them for a while. And this, my Favorite Husband reported, was what he saw X doing, after parking their car in the little turnoff used by hunters, fisherpeople and stoners next to the stream.

"Oh," said Mojo, who despite all this history really bears no grudge or anything--I mean, some people just HAVE to BE that way, ya know--"So did you stop to say hi?" Because I hadn't heard from X in over a year or two, while my Favorite Husband seems to encounter them every few months or so.

"Why yes," said my Favorite Husband, "As a matter of fact, I did."

"Was X glad to see you?"

"Oh, yes! All hugs and kisses. It turns out X feels a deep spiritual connection with this river, you might be surprised to find out. Many times they feel the heartfelt urge to pull over and watch it, so they do."

"Well, that's nice," sez I, for it is indeed a very nice athletic sort of shallow rocky stream. Very New Englandy. In the fall with all the leaves changing it looks extra nice. And it's not OWNED by anyone, so X can commune freely without fear of being arrested. "We should have taken X up to see the quarry." (Which, okay, COULD get you arrested, I suppose, but whatcha gonna do.)

"Oh, I'm sure X doesn't want anything more to do with ME anymore," admitted my Favorite Husband. "Not after I saw them last."

"And why's that?"

"Well, we're standing there on the bridge, watching this magical spiritual stream and talking, and X starts going into detail trying to communicate to me this deep spiritual bond they feel with this particular body of water. Apparently sometimes when they drive by, X says, and they see this average little shallow brook, and other times it magically transforms into this angry swollen waist-deep torrent. It has nothing to do with the rain. And X was getting all spiritual about how this stream could change character so radically for no apparent reason."

"Awww, gee, you didn't," I said.

"Yes, I'm afraid I did. X was all like, 'ooooh, this magical stream sometimes just RAGES for no apparent reason'. And I quick as a bunny just HAD to point out that this was the stream that comes from the dam that makes the reservoir up near our house. And the water company has a hydroelectric plant up there. And every now and then they let the water out of the dam to run the generators. And way down here, miles away, this tiny little shallow stream suddenly gets all huge and ragey, all from the water company letting all the valves out all at once on the dam to spin the turbines."

"Oh, poor X," says Mojo, for Mojo really does feel badly about deflated wonderment. Like when kids find out about Santa.

"Yeah, I was just telling X because I figured they didn't know, and about halfway through I saw the look in their eyes and I realized instead of helpfully informing X--which was my honest intention--I had instead totally destroyed this Magical Spiritual Mystery in their life. X got really mad at me, I think."

"Ah, well, we are on a different path," I say, in a pitiful attempt to be helpful.

"Yes," my Favorite Husband replies. "And apparently OUR path has water companies and power plants on it instead of magical fairies."

I thought about this for a minute, honestly mourning X's destroyed innocence about their beloved Mystery River, since, like I said, X is a very nice and well-intentioned person even if they are not the brightest bulb in the pack.

"Maybe..." I say, since I'm not sure how my cold logic Favorite Husband will take this theory, "Maybe the water company is in fact run by water fairies. Water fairies who possesses a special, magical influence over the State Cops. Enough influence so that they have the magical power to arrest us for trespassing and endangering the public water supply should they ever catch us skipping around their watershed, communing with the lake."

My Favorite Husband didn't think much of this theory. Hey, that's a closed mind for ya....

Mojo