River
I took a walk along the river today.
The sky, watchful of my mood, was a tense blue. A few birds went about their daily lives, whatever that entails, in the barren trees that lined the riverbank, though none were so ostentatious that I might look up and question their efforts to impede upon my self-inflicted peace. The wind, for its part, did me the deed of dormancy, for the time being, anyway. Every now and then it blew cold breaths along my path, pushing the few hairs on my head that hung over my forehead left and right, before calming and retaining its prior rest.
The gravel crunched, deliciously I must say, under my feet as I walked. It was a refreshing sound, like the internal explosions one hears when crunching on pieces of ice. Few people passed me on my way; only one, in fact. A small girl, between the ages of eight and ten I'd say, with lovely blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail. Needless to say, she didn't look up at me (what good parent teaches children to make eye contact with strangers?), but I saw a look of determination on her face. To whom or where she was running, I was and still am unaware; I had passed nobody and, I assume, the inverse was true as well. Once she was behind me, I looked and confirmed my suspicion - to my eyes, at least, it indeed did not appear that there was anybody to be running to. Her strides were short and powerful, and as she ran in my opposite direction, I saw the full length of the soles of her feet when she picked up either leg to accompany its counterpart, tenuously pushing off from the ground underneath her wiry frame.
Within moments, it seemed, I was alone again. The river hardly moved, although, by some sixth sense, I knew it continued to breathe. Perhaps it was the delicate rustling of the lithe branches above me; most likely it was, the ethereal low static of moving water, that noise which ceases to exist as soon as one attempts to hear it. It exists only in accompaniment to senses let off guard - an open mind, if you will. Ripples occasionally stretched themselves on the surface, though their origin was unclear. It is likely they came from under the surface.
Taking my place on a wooden bench, just a few feet from the riverbank, I attempted to find my place in the silence. It struck me as telling, if not embarassing, how uncomfortable we humans are in perfect silence. Words are walls on which a relationship can lean or be hung; in order to exist in that speechless void, one needs to float. Buoyancy is not a quality most possess.
The moon's arrival placed a black satin over the tangled branches of my only companions up to that point (save my nameless, running companion of a few hours past), leaving me to contemplate my situation with only the slowly flowing river. Without other options, I rolled up the cuffs of my pants and set forth to the muddy bank in front of me. Rhe river floor was cold, and a few sharp rocks dug into the bottoms of my feet. I began to lose feeling in my feet, and I felt my muscles, from feet to shoulders, gasping for warmth.
In my state of cold shock, I failed to notice a single swan that had made its way towards me. It sat, silently, on the water, looking at nothing. I examined it for a few moments, marvelling at the perfection of its curves, the brilliance of its whiteness, the eyes trapped in small patches of black. Looking up at the moon, in a fit of loneliness, I let my feet sink into the ground, my legs and torso, and in complete silence, let the water embrace me.
posted by David @ 7:50 PM
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