Chimper #3173
Keisha the Intrepid keeps a perfect record of failure. For years, they have sat by the river in The Heart of the Forest, a picture of serenity with their pink visor and the lucky plant sprouting from their head. The other locals, busy with song and feasts, admire their patience but have never once seen them catch a single fish. They assume Keisha is simply enjoying the peace, a gentle soul lost in thought. They are half right. The line on Keisha’s rod isn’t baited with worms, but with empathy. It dips into the river’s psychic currents, which carry whispers of fear from the wilder outer regions. Keisha doesn’t fish for food. They fish for nightmares, hooking onto drifting sorrows and anxieties before they can poison the clearing’s joy, and reeling them into oblivion.
