The Water-Skippers

THE WATER-SKIPPERS

Once a president’s water-skippers fanned out across the shallows of political talk shows in support of their boss.
The water-skippers’ normal habit, it is true, is to remain safely camouflaged or hidden from sight completely. Venturing out from their cover is tricky business for these secretive and jittery creatures. The smallest pebble tossed into their midst invariably sends them scattering in a frantic attempt to limit any damage the spreading ripples might cause. They usually succeed after a fashion, but still, it can be tiring to lead such a skittish life all the time.
Their success in riding out these frequent scares owes a great deal to their ability to dart this way and that almost as if their feet never touched down or did so virtually without leaving a trace. They’ve become so adept at this type of maneuver they refer to it among themselves as the power to “walk on water.” In reality, it’s merely a consequence of the greater density of water relative to one of nature’s true lightweights.
On this particular occasion, the water-skippers spread out in a confident array, almost as if to show by their numbers and determination that they could command the very forces of nature to obey them.
Turning their helter-skelter darting about from a minus into a plus, the water-skippers impressed their hosts with the apparent ease of their evasive moves in response to every question asked. Not surprisingly, the less energy these maneuvers required, the more the water-skippers’ confidence grew that they were indeed masters of their element.
So emboldened did they become with the lack of any real challenge raised to their incessant bobbing and weaving that many of them began to engage in ever-wilder exhibitions of both on their own, without prompting, as if spurred on to heady gyrations so contorted or fantastic they defied explanation by any principles known to logic or the world of physics.
The one question that never arose during these performances, the one question no doubt in the minds of audiences tuning in from coast to coast, was why the water-skippers were the focus of news programming in the first place. Why not the 3 a.m. segment of “Nature’s Funniest Videos” instead? Was the twitchy-twitchy show they put on in support of the president, while admittedly droll, really that newsworthy?
Other, that is, than to those who might have a professional interest in documenting some of the bizarre life forms that thrive in the political world’s bogs and stagnant wastelands?