Wetland

The air thickened, heavy with the sweet-rot smell of peat and magnolia. Frogs thrummed a bass note, and a wood duck shrieked in the reeds. This wasn't a wasteland, as the developer’s proposal claimed. It was a library. Every ripple told a story; every water-stained leaf held a memory.

He poled back, not toward the landing, but toward a different shore. The high, dry ground where the survey stakes had been hammered in—orange plastic ribbons fluttering like obscene flowers. wetland

A boy, no older than twelve, was floundering waist-deep in a hidden slough, his city sneakers filling with black water. His face was a mask of panic. The air thickened, heavy with the sweet-rot smell