Snapshot of a freshwater ecosystem

The sky rippled in reflection of the flowing stream, where caddisflies anchored themselves to dead leaves, sticks, and various other debris, only moving to reveal their presence when disturbed by non-current motions, like the frog returning to the moisture, slapping the surface as it reentered. The frog’s return jostled the caddisflies away from their larger hiding spots, but the fear of predation kept them momentarily still. They then retreated to cover, to their own nutritional duty of filtering the stream for edible algae.

A snail used its foot to slither across the pebble-filled bottom, searching for its own feast of chlorophyll in the watery ecosystem, or perhaps a fellow mollusk to entangle its slime trail with, slither body along body as their mucus merged, bodies merging as one of the couple unsheathed a love dart and stabbed the other. This snail was far from alone, and indeed, slithered upon another snail's shell, signaling interest.

Unbeknownst to the couple beginning their mating ritual on the bottom of the stream, the sky that had been reflected earlier was beginning to pour the condensed contents of its clouds back into the environment, rain falling into the existing flow of water. The puddles that formed would eventually also merge into the water, unless they evaporated.