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The River

Andrew Forney

The river starts in a natural amphitheater,
fed by winter snowfalls and spring rains, moving killed by the rise in the land and the enmity it held.
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down stream by the power of altitude in a gushing
Eric gaze out at the flooded fields of his
torrent of rapids and noise. Gradually, the stream
slows, becoming wider and diverging into rivulets farm and thought of many things. It was winter, in
that create boggy marshes along the banks. The the dark middle of it, but the day was sunny and
land next to the river is lush and green, with trees mild, the ice on the grass turning into soggy mud.
overhanging the bank in some spots, and high He though of his nOW-dead father, and his way-
marsh grasses and tulles move in the breezes that ward aunt, and his mother, who resided in the city
lightly blow down the river; they originate in the now, and had before his father died. Maria came
same amphitheater, with the same cool and to his mind, the soft curves of her body in her cot-
ton dress, and the way she danced with him once
mountainy feel that the river often has.
Halfway down its,length, the river fronts a before. He thought about fish and fishing, and the
rise in the land, a grassy plateau that appeared to jovial deception it entailed, and the spot below the
arise suddenly from the earth; but this is decep- river; he would fish there soon, with his bamboo
tive, for it is the smooth plains on the other bank rod and the flies tied by his mother's friend in town
that plane down from the lofty heights of the river's (no fish would bite on hoppers now). However,
birth. In the spring the river floods and covers none of these things came to him singularly, but
portions of the plain, depositing the richness of its rather as a whole, and what he actually considered
travel from home. On the plain the farms grew, in now was the weighty concept of life and future
and the dark at night. It was before the war; prob-
the shadow of the fake rise in the land.
ably a few years before.
The river wound on, until the plateau
Eric sipped at his coffee and let his gaze
formed along its front, and the river cut out a hill
of its own, in defiance, before it entered the square travel over the land again, the river barely audible
at this distance, even at the flood level it was at
shaped bay of bluish green water. On the hill be-
\

fore the bay the city grew, slowly, until it could now. The spring would be hard, but he had land in
between his house and the river, even with the
divert the river how it chose, use the river, and at- lower 40 acres flooded over.

tempt to know its heart. But what city could con- He went inside and sat at the typewriter and
wrote:
trol its heart when men so rarely know their own?

So, eventually, the city turned away from the river,

in defeat and defiance, and faced the bay, and the The hills were awash with blood.
futures it held.

When the war came, as it was said to be then quickly scratched it out. For good measure,
destined to, the river and the plain and the fake he took out the paper and crumpled it up and threw
rise in the land were no longer land, but zones, it in the corner. Moving to the window and the
and the city burned. The plateau was mainly open, river beyond, Eric pictured his mother, When they
populated with a few sparse farms and a few large both were younger and his father was alive, look-
ranches, and the heights commanded the river and ing out at the opposite window, toward the bay and
the bay, land being more substantial than water to the city. The yellowish light would come through
some (the farmers knew better). In the night, the window on her, the dust dancing behind her in
muzzle flashes and artillery bursts lit the fake rise the rays of light that escaped through the space
in the land, no longer fake in the darkness, and the between her hip and elbow.
men who waged war, and many who didn't were
"I'm leaving," she had said; Eric's father