Mooring the Bottle Cap

I marched past the front gate and took the footpath down toward the neighborhood pond. Resting half-submerged on the muddy bank was an abandoned red metal bottle cap, trapped beneath a drift of soggy pine needles like a sunken tugboat! Neglected salvage in public water? Never on my watch. I waded right into the wet grit, planted my webbed feet against the slick concrete slope, and pried that red disc loose with both hands. It fought back with suction, splashing dirty pond water across my chest feathers! That lit my fuse. I gritted my beak, wedged a rigid dry twig straight through its crimped rim, and planted the wooden stake deep into the mud until that red hull was moored rock-steady against the ripples.