I am a droplet. Just a small droplet.
One day, I fell into a lake.
The water didn’t crave my presence,
but there I was—
falling.
With a soft smack, I broke the silence.
I shivered the surface and I started to send ripples outward.
Tiny waves fanned out toward the shore.
The lake barely remembered I had landed—
but I kept stretching and growing.
One ring, two rings, three rings…
Each of them was a promise slipping from the center,
making its way in a widening circle that brushed the skin of the water.
How many of these rings have I cast since the day I landed?
I have no idea.
Sometimes I think,
maybe the fish don’t care,
maybe the reeds just nod, in their indifferent sway,
and maybe the water laughs at my ambition.
Because who am I to think I can make any difference in this lake?
But isn’t it something—
how even a single droplet interrupted the calm?
How it pressed its will into the water and bent the shape of its surroundings?
How it insisted:
Look, I’m here, and the world has changed, however small.
Call it hubris.
Call it naive.
But here I am—
just a glistening speck, dreaming of shores I’ll never touch.
Hoping to be felt.
Knowing I might be lost, soaked up, swallowed,
lost to the lake before anyone even sees the last of my rings.
Because one day, my final ring will fade.
And the lake will still be there,
as if I had never fallen.
Still, I choose to believe—
that somewhere, I will make a lily quiver.
That somewhere, the landing of a dragonfly will shift because of me.
That one of my ripples will carry a story farther than I’ll ever know.
And maybe that’s all there is after all—
a brief moment
when stillness breaks
for a droplet
that dares to be
more than just wet.
