He was curled up on his side, asleep.

A light fan of air slowly drifted the log away from the shore, and when I noticed his predicament the distance was already too great for him to leap.
At first the episode seemed merely funny to me.

But when one of the vagrant impulses of fear, common in that age of perpetual insecurity, moved within me, I was struck with my own loneliness.

I was made suddenly aware of Lop-Ear's remoteness out there on that alien element a few feet away.

I called loudly to him a warning cry.