Unspoken River

Around the Riverbend

I can’t go back. To the river. 

But it’s right around the bend, right around the corner. 

It whispers my name, the name I forgot. ​

Kia Brushman (Slytherin)
Writer

​I can’t go back. To the river. 

But it’s right around the bend, right around the corner. 

It whispers my name, the name I forgot. 

“Dariya, you seem ill, do you need an escort to the medik?” My mother grabbed me by the chin, and looked me in the eyes, a puzzled look gleamed on her face. 

I shook my head out of her hand. “I’m fine Mother.” I brushed a strand of hair out of my face and reached for my tattered school bag. 

“It’s the thoughts, isn’t it.” She said as I walked toward the door. I turned my head to look back at her, she was staring at the floor, her hands folded on her stomach. She looked up and gave me a sad glance. I kept walking. 

My school shoes rustled on the dirt road. I looked to my left and saw a group of girls, no doubt in my year, giggling and they huddled over a book. They weren’t river people. The river. 

I shuddered, stopping myself. The river was far out of my reach, yet it whispered to me, in my thoughts. The thoughts kind of came, I don’t know whether they were memories or not. The river didn’t have a name or a location, maybe it was just in my dreams, it didn’t feel that way. Ugh, I didn’t need a medik, I needed a therapist. 

Stumbling on a rock, I shuddered again, trying to not let my thoughts consume me. I looked down at my tan hands, the grace of them, the length of them, from my palm to my fingertips. My fingertips, so beautiful. And then I screamed. 

Reeds, full reeds, sprouting from my hands, I stared helplessly, shaking. They bent and twisted into an odd shape. The shape. The RIVER. 

I closed my eyes and suddenly, I was 10 feet away from where I was before. The reeds were gone, I sighed in relief, but also in terror. The group of girls was ahead of me, still huddled over that book, seemed to be unaffected by my screams and my reed fingers. Did that even happen?

I closed my eyes again, I was scared, what was reality anymore? Who was I? And then I was in the river again. Its crashing waters reaching my legs, the creatures surrounding me, consuming me. THE RIVER. 

It spoke to me. Told me I was more than I thought I was. I was a person of the river, born out of the foam of the sea, created by the creatures within, kept in a body of a human being, her brain wild with thoughts. I was kept sane by the river, I was kept alive by the river. I was the river. I am the river. I am e v e r y t h i n g.

And then I was nothing but my shoes, still walking on that dirt road. All the way to the river, right around the bend.